Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Car­ing about the well­ness of the liv­ing is not some­thing that usu­al­ly comes to mind when you think of a fu­ner­al home, but that was the fo­cus of the JE Guide Fu­ner­al Home and Cre­ma­to­ri­um dur­ing its sec­ond an­nu­al health fair in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

At the busi­ness’ park­ing lot on Cof­fee Street, 16 booths were set up, of­fer­ing ser­vices rang­ing from nu­tri­tion and well­ness to fit­ness checks and in­sur­ance con­sul­ta­tions aimed at pro­mot­ing health­i­er lifestyles among res­i­dents.

Di­rec­tor Bev­er­ly Guide-Williams said the ini­tia­tive came from first­hand ex­pe­ri­ence with non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, which are among the lead­ing caus­es of death.

She not­ed that, while fu­ner­al homes are of­ten seen as places that care on­ly for the de­ceased, her or­gan­i­sa­tion was ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing the health and well­ness of the liv­ing.

Not­ing that the first health fair was held in Princes Town, Guide-Williams said, “Even in the last five to six years af­ter COVID, we have seen a lot of peo­ple com­ing in who had been obese, even with kid­ney prob­lems and heart prob­lems.

“Dur­ing COVID, every­body was at home and just ate and ate, and things got out of con­trol. We want the mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty to un­der­stand that at JE Guide Fu­ner­al Home, we are in­ter­est­ed in your health. We don’t want to see you at the end, but we al­so want to see you around for a very long time.”

Not­ing that yes­ter­day was al­so World Men­tal Health Day, she said the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty was among the booths present.

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said the irony of a fu­ner­al home host­ing a health fair did not es­cape him, but he com­mend­ed them on the ini­tia­tive.

The may­or en­cour­aged mem­bers of the pub­lic to pri­ori­tise their health and take proac­tive steps to­wards well-be­ing, stat­ing that he al­so in­tend­ed to fol­low his own ad­vice.

He said, “I know that if it is, we pri­ori­tise our health as much as we pri­ori­tise every oth­er thing in our life.

“JE Guide, your prof­it mar­gin might fall a lit­tle bit be­cause of that. “Nev­er­the­less, I be­lieve peo­ple need to pay more at­ten­tion to our health. Our health is tru­ly our wealth.”

Cordell Williams, as­sis­tant man­ag­er, de­scribed the com­pa­ny as fam­i­ly-cen­tred, adding that, “This was just the give back to the com­mu­ni­ty, let­ting them know we are here for you, not just at the end.”

Among the or­gan­i­sa­tions present were Cu­na Caribbean In­sur­ance Ser­vices Ltd, See Vu Op­ti­cal, NIB, Trinidad and To­ba­go Jus­tice Clin­ic and Pleas­antville Health Or­gan­ic Store.