Diabetic and Healthy Living Campaign

On 10March 2013, IIUM Pharmacy Students’ Society (IPhA) organized Diabetic and Healthy Living Campaign at Badminton Hall IM2. This health campaign was held in collaboration with Malaysian Pharmacy Students’ Association (MyPSA) and KRT Indera Mahkota Jaya.

At 7.30AM, the campaign kick-started with an aerobics session which involved students of IIUM and the community of Indera Mahkota Jaya. Despite being held early in the morning, people of young and old participated in the aerobics session which included varying levels of exercises.

The next agenda of the day was the Opening Ceremony at 9.00AM. Asst. Prof. Dr Siti Hadijah Shamsudin, the Advisor of Diabetic and Healthy Living Campaign; delivered her welcoming speech to the public. Then, the ceremony proceeded with a speech by a representative of KRT IM Jaya. We were more than grateful to have Dr Norhizan Ismail, Pengarah Kesihatan Negeri Pahang to grace our ceremony with a very insightful speech. In his speech, Dr Norhizan addressed the importance of maintaining good health to the public and highlighted that health campaigns such as this should be conducted annually for the benefits of all. At the end of his speech, Dr Norhizan proudly officiate our campaign.

Later after that, the health screening session commenced.  Participants were given free health checkup inclusive of BMI, glucose level, cholesterol level and blood pressure monitoring. Each participant was then given extensive counseling by 4^th year students of Kulliyyah of Pharmacy. Potential patients with more than one underlying diseases or on multiple medications were selected as Home Medication Review (HMR) patients and will be monitored continuously in the future as deemed necessary by the students. Overall, the health screening ran smoothly despite the heavy flow of participants especially at noon.

At the same time, a health talk entitled ‘Mencegah Diabetis’ was delivered by Ms. Nazia Iqbal, a full time pharmacist in one of the hospitals in Pahang. Ms. Nazia emphasized not only on the different types of Diabetes, she also explained on ways to cope and overcome the disease to the public.

Outside of the hall, booths were set up with exhibitions by different organizations. The booth set up by IPhA Office Bearers demonstrated to the public on the methods of making creams and ointments. The kids especially, were psyched to have a hands-on experience of making their very own concoctions. Besides that, IPhA also promoted IIUM pilot plant’s items such as the hand sanitiser and analgesic cream. The public were enthusiastic to know that IIUM manufactures such products and gave positive feedbacks on the matter.

Other booths such as that from Pejabat Kesihatan Daerah (PKD) conducted free stress level assessment on the public and gave advice to those who require their guidance. IIUM’s Green Lung Society promoted smoking cessation to the community by means of counseling as well as setting up games such as ‘Twister’ and many others. Several long term smokers who were interested to quit smoking were given proper advice by the students.

All in all, the program was a success whereby the main objectives of creating awareness on healthy living and demonstrating the significance of pharmacists in the health profession were well achieved. Moreover, students were also provided with a platform to put their counseling skills into practice especially during the health screening session.