Health promotion team meets peer educators |19 December 2012

A meeting was held recently at the Sheik Khalifa diagnostic centre, where the two parties discussed heath issues affecting young people and how they could together better address them.

A panel of the task force comprised the principal secretary for health Veronique Laporte, and other officials of her ministry met the around 18 young people aged 14 to 21 years.

The meeting had been initiated by the Youth Health Centre, and was hosted in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

PS Laporte said it is important to listen to the views of the youth where health is concerned and that there are indeed many matters of importance that needed to be discussed.

“We have serious issues to deal with, for example, early pregnancies where young people as young as 19 or 20 are having their third or fourth child. We also have a serious issue where abortion is concerned and we have statistics showing the large number of abortions being committed, most of them by young people of 15 to 19 years old,” she said.

She added that other concerns include HIV/Aids, Hepatitis C, and other diseases which are on the rise.

“The peer educators are part of one of the focus groups we are aiming to work with and the information we give them today and what we also get from them will enable us to better have an idea of how to further tackle the problems at hand, and better equip the peer educators on how to give advice,” she said.

There were two presentations from other members of the task force which focused on the issues the ministry is currently facing, including communicable diseases as well as one on early pregnancy, trends, and types of cases received by the Youth Health Centre.

At the end of the session the educators were assessed on what they had learned and how they aim to address the issues.

PS Laporte said the task force will create a sub-committee to work on issues concerning the youth, and will bring on board non-government organisations, the Ministry of Education, department of youth, and other stakeholders.

The task force also met district administrators and members of the National Assembly in a previous session to talk about issues of relevance.

The task force brings together and harnesses skills within the Ministry of Health, and together seeks to address the various ills and issues faced by the ministry.