Are there sensitive ways for healthcare professionals to tell patients
too obese for their own good to lead a healthier lifestyle?
Yes, there are, and tips on how
to do this are contained in a toolkit launched on Saturday by the Health
Promotion Board (HPB).
To be sent out to about 10,000
doctors, nurses and allied health workers in the coming year, this
first-of-its-kind initiative for public and private healthcare practitioners
covers smoking, stress and unsafe sexual practices, aside from obesity.
The first batch of 5,500 kits
will be sent out today.
The HPB will also run courses in
the next three months to train healthcare workers on how to counsel and
interview patients in a way that will motivate them to make changes.
The kit is designed to be used by
general practitioners as well as nurses, therapists, pharmacists, traditional
Chinese medicine physicians, optometrists and dentists, and the HPB hopes that
a concerted effort from these medical workers will have a “multiplier effect”
on patients, helping them quit their bad habits.
HPB’s chief executive Ang Hak
Seng said doing so would keep chronic ailments in check and also lower the
country’s obesity rate.
The Straits Times/ Asia News
Network
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