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June is celebrated as Men's Health Awareness Month and today the Belize Cancer Society collaborated with the Ministry of Health and wellness, PAHO and the Belize Healthcare Partners to host an inaugural Men's Health Forum. It was held at the Old Belize Conference Room captioned under the theme Empowering Men: Men's Health- A focus on Cancer awareness & Mental Health. Here's more:
The inaugural Men's Health Forum focussed on mental and physical health. The room was filled with an audience of multigenerational men who seemed eager to hear a fresh perspective of men's health.
Kim Simpliss Barrow- President, Belize Cancer Society
"We decided as a board to host this forum whereby we allow men to have access to medical doctors and to experts in the field and to listen to cancer survivors and of course really discuss mental health issues among men in Belize."
It is common knowledge that men generally don't like to visit doctors but Dr. Ramon Yacab, the Keynote Speaker of today's event and the country's only Oncologist, shared some words of caution on the importance of screening.
Dr. Ramon Yacab- Keynote Speaker and Oncologist
"There's so many issues I think it's more societal norm about men being there for the family sometimes, most of the time men put family first. We may be having symptoms and we prefer to be bread winning in order for our family to be alright."
"Half of the patients affected are men. The unfortunate part, the heart breaking part is that most men diagnosed with cancer are coming in with cancer already at an advance stage which most of the time may not be curable."
"It is important to do your early check up, Why? We detect them earlier and the prognosis is better. Clinical outcomes are better. That means that you'll have more time with your family, sometimes cancer free but it's knowing that you'll have to be there every year doing our checkup. so it's really important, let's check up on prostate, let's check up for colon cancer, let's check up for lung cancer. These are the ones we can really detect early. <_p> Men are often expected to be strong, and self-sufficient, making it difficult to acknowledge their struggles and ask for help but Mayor Bernard Wagner, who was also in attendance, expressed the importance of breaking down these stigmas and showing vulnerability.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"We as men really need to unlock some of the stigma and societal expectation in respect to opening up. We suffer depression,anxiety many times but we do it in silence. And it's just the sort of stigma that we need to Man up or you should always be manly, but sometimes we should all be able to speak out these challenges, these pain that we go through life each and every day with."
And more than just a talk shop, today's event launched a "Men Against Cancer Initiative"
Kim Simpliss Barrow- President, Belize Cancer Society
"The Men Against Cancer Initiative is again a part of the output from the forum because we didn't just want to have a forum in a vacuum we wanted to have this additional value which is a group of men who will also be access point for the men not only in this room but the men in general in this country."
