NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 5 – Kenyans are set to receive free advice on Non – Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in all Goodlife Pharmacies across the country in a new campaign dubbed wellness 360.
The campaign follows a partnership between Goodlife Pharmacy and Phillips Pharmaceutical where Goodlife pharmacy staff will get the continuous training on Non – Communicable Diseases in a bid to equip Kenyans on lifestyle modification interventions so as to help in reducing the burden of NCDs and promote healthy lifestyle.
“Of our 300 workforce we have so far trained about 100 of them and we will continue to keep training all of them, we realized the first place any patient visits, it’s a chemist, asking for a certain drug, how about equipping our workforce with the necessary information,”said Goodlife Pharmacy Head of Retail, David Kasonga.
The partnership is under Phillips Top100 training programme that seeks to provide patient centric education aimed increasing knowledge of NCDs to Kenyans.
“Under the collaboration, various experts from Clinical Nutritionist, Medical Experts and Consultant pharmacists will provide continuous training and update tailored on patient centricity and advice on wellness and lifestyle modification,” said Phillips Pharmaceutical Chief Executive Newton Siele
The move comes even Covid-19 pandemic worsens with people who suffer from NCDs at a great risk.
Ministry of Health data shows that NCDs accounted for over 50 percent of hospital admissions in Kenya.
Moreover, 33 percent of Covid-19 related deaths suffered from diabetes and hypertension.
Latest statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO) also indicate that about a quarter of Kenyan Women aged 15 years and above are either underweight or obese.
In contrast only, 7 percent of Men in the same age group suffer from the conditions with obesity increasing across at an alarming rate.
“Lifestyle modification is highly recommended as one of the interventions in reducing NCDs related complications, Kenyans can now walk in any of our pharmacies and get necessary advice especially on nutrition and healthy living,” said Goodlife CEO Amaan Khalfan.
The campaign will run for five months.
Goodlife has about 65 branches in the region with a reach of over 3 million people.
