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•Warns against sacrificing health on altar of deadlines
From Beifoh Osewele, Enugu
Founder and Chief Medical Director of Save A Life Hospital, Port Harcourt, Dr. Richard Okoye, has warned journalists against sacrificing their health on the altar of deadlines, urging them to pay greater care to hypertension, diabetes and other conditions that could truncate their lives short.
Okoye said journalists must strive to stay alive beyond the deadline by undergoing regular medical checks, knowing their blood pressure and blood sugar levels and responding early to warning signs rather than waiting until their conditions become critical.
He spoke on Day Two of the ongoing annual All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC) in Enugu, yesterday, where he delivered a paper titled, “The Human Side of Journalism: Managing Stress, Deadlines and Personal Wellbeing.”
The physician, who laced his presentation with humour, anecdotes and medical facts, told the editors that the pressures associated with their profession should not become an excuse for neglecting their health.
He said hypertension and diabetes deserved particular attention, noting that people could be living with potentially dangerous conditions without appreciating their seriousness until complications developed.
Okoye also took his audience through the workings of the heart and other aspects of cardiovascular health, including the nexus between ejaculation and the heart, drawing laughter from the editors as he used everyday experiences to explain otherwise technical medical issues.
But beneath the humour, he stressed the need for people to understand their bodies and recognise that prevention and early detection could make a significant difference.
He also drew attention to Nigeria’s low life expectancy and the impact of the “Japa” syndrome on the country’s healthcare system, saying the migration of doctors and other health professionals had further depleted available medical manpower.
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Official figures from the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare’s State of Health of the Nation Report 2024 put Nigeria’s doctor density at 2.9 per 10,000 people, translating to approximately one doctor for every 3,474 Nigerians.
The report said the country had 66,241 doctors for an estimated population of about 230.1 million, while doctor density had improved from 2.3 per 10,000 people in 2022.
Okoye, however, brought the implications of poor health closer home when he asked his audience to consider what their continued presence meant to their families.
He said many people, particularly men, devoted themselves to working and providing material things for their wives and children without paying corresponding attention to the health that would enable them to remain with those families.
According to him, the presence of a father in the home could make a huge difference to the lives of his children, and material possessions could not adequately replace the emotional and stabilising role of a parent.
He illustrated the point with experiences of families coping with the loss of fathers, noting that a man’s responsibility to his family should therefore include taking care of himself.
The medical practitioner urged journalists not to become so consumed by deadlines, irregular working hours and professional pressures that routine health checks were relegated to the background.
Okoye maintained that personal wellbeing should be treated as seriously as professional responsibility, stressing that providing for one’s family was important but remaining healthy enough to be present for that family was equally important. For journalists accustomed to ensuring that the newspaper goes to bed, his message was that the editor must also remain healthy enough to go home after the deadline.
