Good health is a basic necessity of any human being, and it’s impossible to ignore or treat with levity. An individual who’s at an optimal state of health will be in the best position to carry other life activities. Since the environment is also a determinant of good health, those living in urban communities are at a greater risk of health breakdowns.
The mechanization of many activities in urban communities can make life easier for dwellers and serve as a source of health-related problems like respiratory disorder. Faith-based organizations (FBOs) are uniquely positioned to improve the health status of urban dwellers. Since many of the world’s population live in urban areas, they can’t be neglected. Instead, they should be a topmost priority on the watchlist of the FBOs.
Society members, especially those who belong to specific faith groups, can identify with their faith organizations and readily adhere to these foundations’ instructions and guides. Here are five significant ways FBOs can best improve the public health of urban communities.
1. Organize a Health Outreach
While spiritual outreach is essential, health outreach is also a necessity as health is wealth. FBOs should organize regular health outreaches in urban communities that’ll enlighten urban dwellers about healthy lifestyles such as the best saltless water softener and Nuvo cartridges for healthy water consumption. The outreaches shouldn’t be limited to the members of the specific FBO organizing the outreach; rather, it should be directed to all dwellers within the targeted location.
Religious groups can take a detailed survey of the intended audience and their primary health problems to set the solutions as their targets. They should delegate the outreaches to expert organizers, and the service of the law enforcement agencies can be employed to maintain law and order. Sheer display of force and roughness should be discouraged from the invited law enforcement agencies to encourage active participation from dwellers who’re the target audience.
To ensure accuracy and credibility, FBOs can seek registered medical professionals to counsel the participants of the outreaches. Apart from the professional but engaging health talks, gifts and motivating incentives can also be shared equally among participants to encourage others. In all, FBOs should ensure they conduct the outreaches intermittently. They should also find active means of maintaining participants’ interest in health programs.
2. Invest in Medical Establishments
FBOs can improve urban communities’ health sector by investing in medical establishments like hospitals, clinics, etc. in urban areas. If there’re enough financial resources, FBOs can construct these medical establishments or partly fund their constructions. Similarly, FBOs can equip medical offices in urban areas with the necessary machines and devices they need to deliver optimal and functional health services. By being an active investor in hospitals, urban dwellers’ general health welfare can be vastly improved.
3. Offer Health Counselling Services
FBOs can set up a health counseling unit made up of experienced health professionals and specialists eager to help improve people’s health. The counseling unit’s door should be widely opened to the masses, and it should shun no one. Doing so will enable the urban dwellers to tackle any potential infections by reporting the early signs of infection to the counseling unit.
However, the counseling unit should maintain its label name; counseling. The team can only administer first aids to dwellers and not divulge into clinical treatments. Instead, the team can direct people with health breakdowns to hospitals for adequate and professional care. The department can also schedule a particular session or period to meet with the locals.
Occasionally, the FBO’s counseling unit can visit patients in hospitals to boost their emotional stability. It can also see locals in their homes. When people get informed of accurate health information, they tend to live a healthier lifestyle by being conscious of their health and reducing actions that can increase diseases and infections.
4. Provide Health Insurance Support
Having health insurance in place is crucial to any individual’s vitality, most especially a city dweller in this present century. Health insurance can enable people to carry out their life activities with a more fabulous rest of mind, reducing some cardiovascular disease risks such as high blood pressure. FBOs can help in partial financing of health insurance coverage for vulnerable dwellers.
FBOs can also organize a health insurance support scheme to assist city dwellers ready to fortress under the health insurance coverage. However, FBOs should ensure there’s adequate supervision of the insurance coverage to avoid exploitations.
5. Foot Patients’ Bills
FBOs can also effect a significant improvement in the public health of urban communities by helping with the bills of vulnerable patients, depending on the available resources. In a situation where the FBO can’t pay all the total health costs of the chosen patients, it can make a fragmental donation. And FBOs shouldn’t only stop at assistance; they can also keep an eye on the patients till their health is at optimal status, even after discharge from the hospitals.
Conclusion
With the collaborative efforts of FBOs, private philanthropies, and public administrators, the general health of Urban communities can take a brighter future. Urban dwellers can live happily, healthily, and more fulfilled.
