Family Medicine: All you need to know about Family Health and Wellness

By Petterson Njogu

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) entails the governments initiative of eradicating poverty to dignity, that goes to great lengths to provision of affordable healthcare complementing access to basic needs.

The only way to achieve this is for families and the society at large to employ preventative care measures rather than curative ones. This will be achieved by involving family health physicians as part of their wellbeing and treatment.

Family physicians are all-rounded doctors trained in numerous fields of medicine to provide comprehensive health care to individuals and families.

They also provide patientcentered care that takes into consideration the individual symptoms, their holistic health status, and the environment within which they live.

Newsline sat down with Dr. Caroline Robai, KNH Family and Wellness Physician in an attempt to demystify the little-known themes around family medicine and wellness.

Newsline: What is wellness?

Dr. Robai: Wellness is a state of being free from disease. Various aspects affect human beings: psychological, physical, and social aspects, in general, affect families and the community. For instance, a patient suffering from diabetes, has hypertension and probably suffers from mental illness at the same time. As family physicians, we try to manage all three inter-related conditions using the information that we may gather from the patient to make this individual feel better in a holistic approach.

Newsline: What wellness clinic services do you offer at KPCC?

Dr. Robai: At KPCC we offer a wellness package for both staff and the members of the general public. We have a pre-employment package where we screen the new hospital employees at the beginning of their contract for any communicable or noncommunicable diseases. We also do an annual screening and also post-employment to screen for any occupational diseases that may have been acquired in the line on duty.

We also have a well-man clinic; categorized into below and above forty years of age. We test them for colon cancer, prostate cancer. General wellness conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, among others.

We also run the same wellwoman wellness clinic for women in the same age bracket. (Above and below 40 years of age). In addition to a full hemogram test for women below the age of forty, we also run colon and breast cancer tests and an annual pap smear procedure.

Other services include;

• Obesity and weight management clinic- these are also offered at the wellness clinic and help in preventing and managing most communicable diseases • Smoking cessation- we offer guidance and counseling to people who wish to quit the habit of smoking cigarettes • Geriatric wellness- promotes wellness to the elderly patients by improving their health as well as their dignity. This gradually leads them to essential healthy aging. • Annual full body checkups and regular health maintenance visits • Pre-university admission check-up • Immigration and travel assessments among other occupational disease assessment

Newsline: What are the benefits of a Holistic Care approach

Dr. Robai:

The approach puts patients in a biopsychosocial and contextual approach which makes it comprehensive • Ease of referral to specialist doctors when needed, while acting as an advocate in navigating through the healthcare journey • It focuses on disease prevention and health promotion by identifying disease risk factors and red flags for complicated illnesses • Coordinates care with other specialists to ensure harmonized and non-fragmented care Reduces misdiagnosis and hospitalization • Kenyatta Prime Care Centre offers a consultant Wellness Clinic every Wednesday and Friday from 9 AM. Book your clinic today on 0782 550844.

PHOTO | COURTESY

Dr. Caroline Robai, KNH Family and Wellness Physician