06 Nov 2019

A senior medical officer at Letsholathebe II Memorial Hospital in Maun, Dr Nthabiseng Machaba, has urged workers in the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) to guard against non-communicable diseases.

Speaking at the ministry’s wellness day in Maun on November 5, Dr Machaba said lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure, sugar diabetes and lung cancer were a concern to the health fraternity.

She, therefore, encouraged those in attendance to avoid habits such as smoking, unbalanced diet and lack of exercise because they could lead to non-communicable diseases.

For his part, the North West District officer, Mr Sedikwa Motshipi, urged workers to take into consideration social issues such as financial literacy and gender based violence because they could have a bearing on their productivity.

Mr Motshipi indicated that employees who faced such issues usually produced poor results in the workplace due to stress and depression. “Communication is very important within our society. If people have some problems, it is very important to seek advice from different stakeholders rather than bottling issues and making wrong decisions, which would bring more sadness to loved ones,” he said.

A Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Coordinator from MTC, Ms Elizabeth Mangope indicated that one of the objectives of the event was to encourage officers to maintain good health, environment and safety in the workplace.

Ms Mangope also highlighted that their aim was to encourage workers to exercise regularly.

“I also encourage you to test for different communicable and non-communicable diseases such as HIV, diabetes and high blood pressure so that you can seek medical attention at an early stage if diagnosed,” she said.

One of the participants and an employee, Mr Ebutswe Mpigelang said they were taught how to deal with some of the issues such as depression, financial literacy and non-communicable diseases. ENDS