Improving health status for all

Societies prosper when people are in good health. Health, as the World Health Organization (WHO) defines it is the state of complete physical, social, and mental well-being and not just the absence of disease or infirmity. The concept of health can be pursued into specific key dimensions such as physical, spiritual, occupational, emotional, environmental, intellectual, and social. 

As we all know that the critical method for maintaining a healthy lifestyle is prevention. Awareness and prevention are the driving forces to ensure healthy lifestyles and promote well-being for people of all ages. The United Nations believes that health and well-being are essential to sustainable development. Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. Currently, the world is facing a global health crisis unlike any other. Even long Covid-19 is spreading human suffering, destabilizing the global economy, and overturning the lives of billions of people around the globe.

Arranging a union health fair like the community health fair in Europe is the best way to bring health provers nearer to a village and make aware marginal people about marinating good health and well-being.

Under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh has been putting all-out efforts to get a high score on good health and well-being under SDG 3. By this time, major progress has been made in improving the health of millions of people. Significant strides were made to increase life expectancy up to 72.59 years, giving Bangladesh a World Life Expectancy ranking of 85. Reducing some of the common killers associated with child and maternal mortality has given the world community a new prestige position in maintaining good health and well-being in Bangladesh. But more efforts are needed to fully eradicate a wide range of diseases and address many persistent and emerging health issues. By focusing on providing closer health services, improved knowledge of preventive measures on health issues, sanitation, and hygiene, and increased access to physicians, significant progress can be made for rural millions of people in keeping good health.

For promoting health and well-being 'Union Health Fair' can be an excellent option to bring closer health services to people with a  tremendous impact on rural people. A health fair is an educational and interactive event designed for outreach to provide basic preventive medicine and medical screening to people in the community or employees at work in conjunction with workplace wellness. It can also be a public health intervention. Rural people can't go to practicing physicians to get medical advice as and when required. They need to arrange some money first to visit doctors. Not the emergency of treatment, but the emergency of necessary money for the treatment they need to find first. By this time, health condition gets worse. Visiting a doctor is still a big deal to them. They sometimes visit community clinic, union health centre, or upaliza health complex for their health issues, which are still cumbersome. At the gate of the health complexes, they find some people waiting for them to advise wrongly and misguide them, instigate them to visit some clinics for better treatment instead of health complexes. They have very little knowledge and information about the diseases. Thus they accept false promises easily.   

This practice can be easily changed by arranging a village or union health fair for the rural people to educate them, give them medical advice, or provide them medical checkup data and blood test reports. They need updated information about healthy lifestyles, physical activity, and eating habits, and some blood test reports. A good lifestyle is an integral part of their health and well-being and what is a good lifestyle and food habits can be explained to them in person.

Community Health Fairs are becoming increasingly popular as a community activity in the Western world. Community health fairs allow rural residents to receive health care services and education at reduced costs. An increasing number of people are joining the fairs and checking their health conditions in a festive mood. Health fairs are often sponsored by civic organizations, pharmaceutical companies, or conscientious professional bodies to improve the health of community people. The aim and objective of a health fair are to bring physicians closer to the village's ordinary and poor people, such as farmers, rickshaw-pullers, vegetable vendors, and rural poor of different classes who have no financial capacity to access health services frequently. A fair may be a place to detect unsuspected disease, arrange blood test, record blood pressure, heartbeat, pulse, urine test, etc., and provide a "Health Card" instantly. Information about food habits, dietary, physical exercise on how to   keep and maintain good health and well-being can be disseminated. The fair's location should be easily accessible to the targeted population and one packet of biscuit can be given to persons who attend the event, just to attract and motivate people to come in a very homely and friendly environment and give a sense of feeling that he/she is a highly distinguished person with high value of dignity.

A message needs to be upheld that patients are honoured guests and due dignity has been extended to them. When the rural poor people visit upaliza health complexes or union health complexes, most of them do not find their comfort zones. Everything is there in the hospitals or clinics, including doctors and nurses and their services. However, still, they feel something is absent.

In a health fair, it is essential to make them understand that they are a valued person in this event and the event is arranged for them. The feeling of the value of dignity could be priceless to them. For this reason, the Western countries arrange community health fairs at regular intervals in their communities to make them familiar with their physicians, nurses, and the process of the health services where to go and how to go. 

The village health fair may include facilities for maintaining the patients' privacy. Many persons may object to having any newly discovered health problems revealed to a crowd of onlookers and may feel equally uncomfortable. Tests are useless unless the persons tested obtain medical care for any problem found. The results of some tests may be made available instantly, and the results of the test to made understandable for the person tested. Confidentiality should be observed during the whole procedure. For high blood pressure, essential advice to reduce risk of future heart attack or stroke can be given. A random urine sample for sugar is very important for them to know their sugar level and it is cheap, but the availability of this facility near their hand is very rare.

A breast examination may be considered as a most important test for a female. But the scope for such tests is minimal for them. Health fairs can be arranged for providing essential information about the human body and its functions in a "fun and interactive" way for marginal people, who do not have money for visiting physicians for a medical checkup or advice.   

The central purpose of a village health fair is to help individuals with common health concerns and generate awareness about complex issues of long-term wellness. We know that a union-level health fair will not solve all of the community's health problems. It probably will give a sense of belonging that health services and doctors are ready to help them as valued citizens. 

The writer is a former Senior Secretary and currently teaching as an Adjunct Faculty at the Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management (BIGM). He can be contacted at s22arefin@gmail.com