15 Aug 2016

Medswana chief executive officer, Mr Piet Le Grange, has commended the Health 1st Foundation for providing free quality community based health care and wellness programs to the vulnerable and elders through volunteering.
Health 1st Foundation on August 13 held a wellness event for elderly members of the society in Digawana to advance the organisation’s vision of ‘equitable health care access for all’.
Mr Le Grange said the Foundation‘s vision was aligned to the national vision of caring and compassionate nation. He said the event comes at a time when the country was gearing up for independence celebrations which was earned by the elderly people.
‘’I have particularly been touched by the fact that the Foundation has a pool of medical professionals ranging from retired nurses to specialist who run their own practices and all these individuals freely commit and offer their expertise to the elderly and other disadvantaged members of the society’’, he said.
He said the foundation was fairly new and yet it has already impacted on about 3 500 lives, majority whom were the elderly in Bobonong, Tonota, Tsamaya and Rakops villages.
He said non-communicable diseases such as Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular diseases and Chronic respiratory illness were a major challenge and noted that the foundation has compiled a report that major health challenge is Diabetes and Hypertension among the elderly people.
The officer noted that the participants were mostly women, raising concerns that fewer males turn up for health interventions and it could be the reason for the higher mortality rate for males in Botswana.
However, Health 1st Foundation representative Judge Annah Mathiba said their mandate is to develop and implement comprehensive community integrated health and wellness programs as well as facilitate access to healthcare and wellness services.
She said the foundation also aims to complement government and other stakeholders in taking health and healthcare services to the hard to reach areas in Botswana. Judge Mathiba said wellness day aims to provide the elderly with a broad programme of health assessment, screening, basic intervention, health promotion and support of primary and preventative care to minimise the elderly’s wellbeing and productivity within their communities. ENDS