Volunteers of Kidney Health International have received training on hypertension. The training was to equip them on information about the condition and how to deliver health talks on hypertension.
Hypertension affects over 1 billion people worldwide, and in Ghana, it is a common cause of heart attacks and strokes. Unfortunately many Ghanaians are not aware of some of the basic preventive measures.
Many who are hypertensive too stop medications for the promise of some “cure” in alternative medicines.
Staggering enough, the condition does not show symptoms in most cases.
According to a statistics presented at the training, only 5 out of 10 people who are hypertensive are not aware that they are, while another 5 out of 10 people who are hypertensive are on medication. Worse of all is the fact that only 5 out of 10 people who are on medication have their blood pressure controlled.
With this statistics, the best way to nib the burden of the condition in the bud is preventive health through health education. It is on this note that a total of 31 volunteers of the organization were trained to deliver health talks to various groups and people everywhere.
Since the only way one would know if they were hypertensive was through consistently checking their blood pressure, Dr Elliot Koranteng Tannor, the Founder and Director of the organization who took the volunteers through all they needed know, urged the team to go all out to speak to people anywhere they had the opportunity and also check their blood pressures.