Healthy Human Resource Essential For Wealth Creation - Quashigah

Major Courage Quashigah (Rtd), Minister for Health, yesterday reiterated that the country's dream of becoming a middle income country by 2010 would be a mirage if people failed to adopt healthy lifestyles.
    
'If you are not healthy, you cannot produce wealth for the country. The country requires a healthy population but a lot of expenditure is being made on curing preventable diseases due to unhealthy lifestyles,' he said.
    
Major Quashigah was speaking at the launch of the 27th Health Week Celebration of the University of Ghana Nursing Students Association (UGHANSA) which is on the theme, 'Preventive Healthcare: The sure way of attaining wealth.'
    
He advised that people should adopt healthy lifestyles in order to live longer and use their God given talents to assist in the socio-economic development of the country.  'Water, food, exercise, rest and change of lifestyle are essential for preventing diseases. We need to eat well, sustain our health and increase our life expectancy in order to fulfil our talents to the glory of God.'
    
Major Quashigah called for the inclusion of Health Education and Nutrition into the curricula of schools to ensure that students become the change agents of promoting healthy lifestyles.
    
He noted that there were many people who were ignorant of the dangers posed by bad lifestyles like alcoholism and smoking to their health.
    
'How many women know that if you drink alcohol while you are pregnant you will develop Foetal Alcohol Syndrome? When they give birth to children with some form of abnormality, they shift the blame on poor old women branding them as witches.'
    
Major Quashigah appealed to Ministries, Departments, Agencies, organisations and individuals to support the Ministry's Regenerative Health and Nutrition Programme to ensure that health promotion and prevention became the new paradigm in the country's healthcare delivery system.
    
Mr Kwaku Asante-Krobea, General Secretary of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA), called on student nurses at all levels to identify their distinctive roles and specialisation before being integrated into the regular workforce of health professionals.