San­dra L Blood

Hy­per­ten­sion re­mains one of the ma­jor health chal­lenges fac­ing com­mu­ni­ties world­wide, of­ten de­vel­op­ing with­out ob­vi­ous symp­toms un­til se­ri­ous com­pli­ca­tions oc­cur.

For fam­i­ly physi­cian Dr Clau­dia Louel­la Thomas, that re­al­i­ty re­in­forces a sim­ple mes­sage she con­tin­ues to pro­mote: “Your health is your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Thomas has been en­cour­ag­ing adults to take greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their health while al­so en­sur­ing that chil­dren and el­der­ly fam­i­ly mem­bers re­ceive the care and at­ten­tion they need.

That mes­sage was at the heart of the Louel­la MD Pub­lic Health Fair, held in Wa­ter­loo, Cara­pichaima, in recog­ni­tion of World Hy­per­ten­sion Day.

The health fair, host­ed by Louel­la MD Med­ical Ltd, brought to­geth­er med­ical and health pro­fes­sion­als who pro­vid­ed mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty with ac­cess to screen­ings, con­sul­ta­tions and in­for­ma­tion in a re­laxed en­vi­ron­ment.

Pre­ven­tion and

ear­ly de­tec­tion

The ini­tia­tive fo­cused on the im­por­tance of know­ing one’s health sta­tus and tak­ing ac­tion be­fore con­di­tions be­come se­ri­ous.

Vis­i­tors were of­fered blood sug­ar, blood pres­sure and urine test­ing, along with weight and Body Mass In­dex (BMI) as­sess­ments. Vi­sion screen­ings and vac­ci­na­tions were al­so pro­vid­ed.

The event al­so in­clud­ed demon­stra­tions of phys­i­cal ex­er­cis­es, in­clud­ing push-ups, lunges, squats and weightlift­ing, high­light­ing the im­por­tance of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in main­tain­ing good health.

Par­tic­i­pants al­so re­ceived phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts, dis­count­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry ser­vices, free eye­drops and dis­count­ed vi­sion screen­ings. Nu­tri­tion and well­ness prizes were dis­trib­uted through a Spin and Win ac­tiv­i­ty, while wa­ter, in­fant for­mu­la, car­ry bags and per­fume were al­so giv­en away.

Thomas said the ini­tia­tive was part of Louel­la MD’s com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

“The com­mu­ni­ty came out! It was like a big fam­i­ly re­union. I re­alised peo­ple didn’t want to leave. They high­ly com­mend­ed the ser­vice and in­ter­ac­tion.”

The re­laxed set­ting was par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant for peo­ple who may ex­pe­ri­ence anx­i­ety when vis­it­ing med­ical fa­cil­i­ties or who are ap­pre­hen­sive about dis­cov­er­ing their health sta­tus.

A com­mu­ni­ty ap­proach

to well­ness

The health fair was sup­port­ed by Aven­ta Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dream­body Stu­dios, Health Mart Phar­ma­cy, Meik­it Nu­tri­tion & Well­ness, Sight So­lu­tions Op­ti­cal Cen­tre Ltd, SRH Med­ical Di­ag­nos­tics and the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA).

Con­sul­ta­tions were fa­cil­i­tat­ed by pro­fes­sion­als from Louel­la MD and its part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions, giv­ing vis­i­tors an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss their health con­cerns and learn more about pre­ven­tion and well­ness.

The re­sponse from vis­i­tors was pos­i­tive, with com­ments in­clud­ing “One-of-a-kind ex­pe­ri­ence, more of this is need­ed; great; awe­some; ex­cel­lent; it’s more than we ex­pect­ed.”

Thomas and Coach Cather­ine of Meik­it Nu­tri­tion & Well­ness thanked the med­ical and health pro­fes­sion­als, part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er con­trib­u­tors who sup­port­ed the out­reach pro­gramme.

They al­so ac­knowl­edged the DJ who, they said, “en­sured a Tri­ni at­mos­phere was main­tained.”

“Thank you for choos­ing to spend the time with us, whether it was to of­fer ser­vices and ex­per­tise, or to learn more about your health.”

The broad­er mes­sage re­mains one of pre­ven­tion and per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Al­ways re­mem­ber: Your health is your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty!” re­it­er­at­ed Thomas.

Louel­la MD Med­ical Ltd pro­vides phys­io­ther­a­py, fam­i­ly physi­cian ser­vices, di­eti­cian ser­vices, mas­sage ther­a­py, wound dress­ing, Pap smears, home vis­its, an­nu­al med­ical ex­am­i­na­tions, ul­tra­sound, blood test­ing and ac­cess to a mi­cr­o­gym.