El Dorado Offshore, MoH partner to offer key services at health fair

El Dorado Offshore on Monday collaborated with the Health Ministry to organise a comprehensive health fair in observance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The inaugural health fair was held at the Promenade Gardens, Georgetown, and saw persons benefitting from services such as optometry, adolescent health sensitisation, blood donation, consultancy, HIV testing, and dental care among others.
Head of El Dorado Offshore Guyana, Sherry Ferrell explained that since October generates massive awareness of breast cancer, the company sought to fulfil its corporate social responsibility in a holistic manner by offering wide-ranging services.

“October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month but we decided that in addition to the services for breast cancer, we were going to provide additional services. El Dorado Offshore is very committed to our social responsibility and coming out of that, we have held several other initiatives throughout Guyana. Because of the awareness being placed on breast cancer, we decided to reach out to the Ministry, who was very willing and forthcoming with us to have this initiative,” Ferrell indicated.
She underscored that they are seeking to create avenues whereby the population can keep their health in check.
“So far, it has been the first fair but it wouldn’t be the last,” she assured.
At the various booths, staffers from the Health Ministry were engaging persons and offering their respective services. Naudia Baptiste from the Georgetown Public Hospital’s Eye Clinic told this publication that they were able to assist with basic screening.
“Anybody that has any problems with their eyes or just wants to do a check-up, can come and get their eyes screened or checked. It is very important to get your eyes checked because there are many persons that have lost their eyesight and they did not know and it is something that can happen very suddenly,” she explained.

The Mental Health Unit was also present, conducting sensitisation and encouraging persons to prioritise their mental health.
Meanwhile, Mercedes Roberts underscored, “Apart from sensitisation, we’re also on a mission to break the stigma that is surrounding mental health and mental illness because we don’t want people to always link mental health with something that is negative or negative words like ‘crazy’, ‘mad’ and stuff like that.”
Based on interaction with persons, Roberts told Guyana Times that a majority of persons are unaware of what mental health comprises and how to positively look at the topic.
“We have noticed that a lot of people from the public don’t know exactly what it is…That is a way for us to educate people and say that it can be as simple as you have a good mental health day or a bad mental health day.”
El Dorado Offshore has been operating in Guyana as the leading supplier of manpower, recruitment, and personnel logistics services in the oil sector and to all stakeholders.