With July being Men’s Month, men are cautioned against relying on their wives’ and girlfriends’ medical results as an indicator that they are safe from diseases.
KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Health, Nomagugu Simelane, has also urged men to put their pride aside and realise that seeking medical help is not a sign of being too soft.
Simelane was speaking during the weekly KZN Health Chat multimedia programme in the King Cetshwayo District on Friday.
The MEC said the most accurate approach is for each individual to get tested so that they know for sure where they stand as far as their health is concerned.
She said the department will allocate male nurses to clinics, community health centres, and hospitals; to make it easier for men to speak more openly about diseases that plague them.
“So that a person with a sexually-transmitted infection or symptoms of prostate cancer doesn’t suddenly say they’re suffering from a headache, just because they’re being attended to by a young female nurse. Yes, the Department caters to the health needs of everybody in society. But in the course of what we do, it has become clear that there are certain population groups, such as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) groups that need to be treated in a special way. Men, as a population group, also need our specific focus because of their attitude toward their own health, and towards the healthcare system,” said Simelane.
She added: “For us, finding men proved to be such a challenge that the government had to establish a programme dedicated to finding men and bringing them to healthcare facilities. Generally, men only come forward when they are too sick. It is such a problem in our society, that we’ve even come to accept that, in any family, the man is the one who must die first. When married couples reach 80 or 90 years of age, it is regarded as an anomaly, which shouldn’t be the case. It is not natural that men must die early. It is because when men are sick, they do not come to our clinic, the doctor, or the hospital.”
The MEC said some men think going to hospital is an indictment of their masculinity, saying that they think it is a sign that they are not ‘real’ men.
Simelane said they want men to realise that the department takes them seriously, and to know that there is nothing wrong with being a man who goes to the hospital when they are sick.
She added that it is not uncommon among many couples that a woman will go and get tested for ailments such as Covid-19, HIV and diabetes, and when they come back with a clean bill of health, the man will say, “Since you’ve been cleared, it means I’m also fine.”
“Forgetting that a person’s health condition is their own, and does not necessarily reflect on anyone else. Each and every person must test for themselves. When you talk to men, they say ‘why must I get tested for HIV because the woman of this house always gets tested.’ But this is not advisable because some couples are serodiscordant (one partner may be HIV negative, with the other is HIV positive),” said Simelane.
She added: “All in all, we encourage men to come forward and visit healthcare facilities not only in July but every day.” said the MEC.
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