Doha: Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) recently extended the field implementation of Phase One of its National Communicable Disease Prevention Campaign (Weqaya), funded and sponsored by the Supreme Council of Health (SCH).
The campaign will continue for several months, serving some 5,000 more expatriate workers.
In the first event after the extension, a QRC medical affairs team held a health education lecture and distributed personal hygiene kits to 200 workers of Toyo-Thai Corporation Public Company Limited-Qatar, in coordination with the Thai Embassy in Doha.
The distribution of the kits at the beneficiaries’ workplace at Toyo-Thai’s Al Wukair headquarters was attended by company representatives, including Suchet Watchalayan, Project Manager, Projects and Proposal Division, as well as Thai Ambassador Piroon Laismit and a number of his aides.
At the beginning of the event the workers listened to a lecture on health and personal hygiene, common communicable diseases and ways to avoid them, medical advice about protection against workplace risks such as sunstroke and heat exhaustion, and administering first aid to their colleagues who happen to suffer from any such emergencies.
The lecture was delivered in Thai.
After that, the workers received 200 hygiene kits, toothbrushes, soap, and other personal hygiene items, and the recipients were trained in how to best use these items. Weqaya T-shirts were also distributed.
Ambassador Laismit thanked QRC for its efforts to serve expatriate workers in Qatar, improve their living conditions and educate them about health and professional safety.
Co-launched in August 2013 by QRC and SCH, the three-year-long Weqaya campaign is intended mainly to improve health and safety among expatriate workers through educational lectures, fliers, and personal hygiene kits.
In Phase One, lectures, workshops and awareness courses have been held for 10,000 workers from 40 companies and 21,000 visitors to the QRC-run and SCH-funded Workers’ Health Centres.
Moreover, 5,000 hygiene kits have been distributed and workers trained in using them, and 10,000 brochures and fliers on infections and health problems, such as Coronavirus, Ebola, influenza, tuberculosis, and heat exhaustion, have been handed out.
Other phases are currently under way.
This programme is inspired by QRC’s commitment to social development and health promotion in Qatari society. Lower disease rates, particularly among workers, ease the pressure on healthcare services and result in fewer sick leaves.
THE PENINSULA
