The ministry leadership of the Redeemed of Christ Church Chapel welcomed Temple Hills residents to take advantage of free health care services and information during it’s debut Temple Hills Health Fair at its new church site lot at the corner of Allentown Road and Brinkley Road July 9.
Among the services provided, along with health awareness information, the fair offered resident participants free cardiovascular, nutrition, HIV, blood sugar, high blood pressure, dental, and liver function screenings.
Pastor Dele Akanle, senior pastor of RCCC explained the importance of providing residents with health care awareness.
“As a church, one of the things we noticed was that health awareness is very low in our community and we wanted to take it up as a church to reach out to people, especially when health care is a great issue,” said Akanle, who holds a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology from the Nigeria University of Ife. “We’re using this event as a catalyst for future health fairs to educate as many people as possible.”
Akanle said,” Many people from our church don’t have health care and that’s one of the reasons why we wanted to be more involved. Ultimately, we want people to come to these events to get the freedom from sickness, ignorance ad poverty,” said Akanke, who earned a Master’s degree in Pastoral Counseling from Liberty University, Lynchburg, Va.
Health care professionals from Prince George’s County were on hand providing residents with educational health care pamphlets.
Dr. Obumneke Amadi-Onuoha, PH, MPH, B.S. Micr., Discover Health Global Initiative founder, noted, “As public health professionals we’re here to give back to the community.
“We are supporting a fresh start initiative, a green project, caring for healthy people in our communities. The mission and vision of the initiative is to research chronic and infectious diseases currently in our communities,” Amadi-Onuoha said.
“Secondly, our mission is to give back to the communities. Knowing that our children are our future, we created the ‘No Kid Sick’ initiative to work and support children’s hospital’s that are very passionate in curing these illnesses in children at this time and in early stages of their childhood development,” Amadi-Onuoha said.
“We also spread awareness of illnesses that relates to our children. Currently, there is a public health issue of opiates, which can affect children who are at risk of brain or spinal development problems related to opiate cases. We give out information to educate perspective mothers, or mothers who’ve already delivered, about the affects of opiate use so the first stage of prevention can be addressed mothers will be aware before and during their pregnancy.”
Ken Pasquale, Physician Liaison and Marketing Director for Maryland Cardiology Associates, PC, was on hand with staff members from its Vascular Lab to provide residents with free Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) screening. The members used a Quantaflo system, based on Plethysmography, to test the blood flow and blood volume to the fingertips and toe extremities of resident participants.
“When plaque builds up in the arteries which takes blood to your peripheral system, like your toes or fingers it can cause symptoms in those areas and eventually the plaque can cause more severe problems like loss of limb if it goes too long,” Pasquale said.
“If blood volume to the tips is hindered, due to plaque build up in the arteries, then that gives us an indication there may be some serious plaque build up in the arteries. We advise them that they may need to get further diagnostic testing, like an ultrasound from a cardiologist. The ultrasound can give you a picture of the arteries and inside the veins, so they know specifically where the plaque is building up,” Pasquale said.
“The Plethysmography test we’re providing is a complimentary test we give as part of our outreach service. The cardiologist that I work for likes to do outreach programs like this to support the community, because not a lot of people are familiar with Peripheral Arterial Disease, so this is a way to bring awareness.”
At the end of the testing, participants were given free gift packages of bottled vitamin water, granola bars and informational brochures about PAD, so that they can spread the info throughout the community to other people who couldn’t make it to the event.
The community event also entertained residents with food, music and a moon bounce for children to enjoy.
Akanle further noted the new church site will also be a premiere vocational center to provide youth with alternative career training opportunities such as Information Technology, photography and other programs in the very near future.
“Health awareness for adults is not our only concern, we want to reach out to the youth. We wanted to talk to them about careers and financial responsibility,” Akanle said.
“This is our first event, but next year we plan to have more publicity via radio and television public announcements to engage the community.”
