June is recognized as Men's Mental Health Awareness month, but the Belize Cancer Society has taken a different approach at raising awareness and encouraging action when it comes to men taking care of their mental health.
The Belize Cancer Society organized a Men's Forum today at the Civic Center, and the event was not solely focused on men and their mental health. Instead, it looked at encouraging them to care for their overall health.
We spoke to one of the panelists, a former pathologist and he explained how the presentations tackle each aspect of men's health.
Dr. Hugh Sanchez, Board Member of Belize Cancer Society
"As you know, June is Men's Health Month, and we have had previous presentations at Old Belize, and we tried a new venue this time."
"As was mentioned in the interaction was that women tend to take care of themselves, but men, for some reason, as was shared by the mental health expert Dr. Cayetano, that stigma or whatever, we tend to be a little bit hesitant in seeking health and follow through on our health. So the purpose of this men's forum is to try and sensitize, remind, encourage for us to take charge and to, you know, men are needed. And because of the way we are reared-macho, men don't cry, men don't clomping, men don't get emotional and we keep things in-it messes us up and as a result of that, we crash. Or, as was shared in the statistics, between 30 and 50, five times the suicide rate because we take the burned, we sit on stand, we suffer in silence, and when it comes to a crisis, then we seek health. And when it is a very bad diagnosis, we withdraw, we become more depressed, we try our own methodology-i.e., silence, drinking rum, whatever-and at the end of the day, it is not helping because when you are out of the picture, that is a person who is a provider who has gone. So as a society, we say we need to address this issue, we need to put it on the front burner, and we need to make it so relevant that we can effect a change in our men, and the purpose was to achieve that."
