BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IT is all about safety, safety, and more safety at Kajola Kristada Ltd’s fifth annual Safety Week – a week of activities geared towards the promotion of safety of all types.
The week kicked off with a health talk where two doctors made an appearance at the company yesterday (Oct. 24) to speak to the employees on different health safety topics.
General Manager of Kajola Kristada Ltd., Jose Rosa, in declaring Safety Week officially opened, stated that the company is also celebrating 1000 days without a lost time accident.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Patrick Martin spoke on the issue of child abuse and neglect, obesity in children, and parenting.
He first pointed out some local cases of child abuse and neglect, noting that there are at least 105 reported cases per year. He also noted that 60% of the children in Primary Schools have tooth decay.
“How and where children end up in this world depend on choices we parents and adults make for them, and it also depends on the choices we allow them to make,” he explained.
He explained that parents can surround their children with the beauty of natural foods or they can surround them with “poor, unsafe, unhealthy foods”.
He explained the negative impact that television has on children. He said that children mimic what they see on television and that even some cartoons are unhealthy for them to watch.
He noted that there are four types of parents in the world.
The absent parent, he said, is the one who is not there; they have disappeared from the child’s life for whatever reason.
The permissive parent, he explained, is the one who gives the child whatever they ask for, or continuously asks the child “what you want?”.
Dr. Martin explained that the totalitarian parents are the ones who are abusive while the parents, who are authoritative, are consistent, reliable, and loving.
He then explained the difference between good parenting and bad parenting and the responses the child would have to certain situations which would indicate whether or not the parent is good or bad.
“Pay attention to your child’s mind and stop trying to keep up with the Jones, and packing up your children’s school bag with all kinds of stuff from the supermarket because you want to show off,” he requested.
He lastly advised the employees to stop wasting money and to ignore stupid talk.
Family Physician, Dr. Andrew Holness addressed the issue of asthma.
He started out by explaining to the employees exactly what asthma is and what is does. He clarified that asthma is an airway disease and that what is does is swell the lining of the airways.
He identified the triggers of asthma attacks of which, he said, there are seven.
One of the triggers identified was the home environment. He said problems such as dust collected in the home would set off asthma.
“One of the big problems that trigger asthma is allergies,” he said.
Another trigger Dr. Holness identified was occupation – the nature of some persons’ job. He stressed on the importance of keeping the work area clean.
“You need to work in a clean environment,” he said.
Emotion was another trigger identified. He explained that persons who are asthmatic, and get overly excited, or scared, or even stressed out can come down with an asthma attack.
Another trigger acknowledged was infection. Dr. Holness explained that asthma attacks brought on by infection is something that he sees a lot of in children. He explained that asthma flares up when the airways are vulnerable, or when one is weak, and that usually happens when there is an infection such as the flu virus or a cold virus.
Other triggers identified were exercise, medication, and change in temperature.
Dr. Holness also spoke about the signs of an asthma attack. He explained that there are times when a person may think that they are having an asthma attack when they are really not.
He noted that one of the signs, among others, to look for is a change in breathing patterns. He explained that when a person is under an attack, he or she would be able to breathe in but the person would not be able to breathe out due the airway constriction.
He then spoke of the treatments to calm the attack of asthma – an asthma pump, and a nebulizer.
Before ending, Dr. Holness made a very important note, that even if one grows out of asthma, the person will always be vulnerable to it.
The week of activities continues today with Kajola employees receiving small tokens of appreciation, compliments the company, while the afternoon of Wednesday (Oct. 26) will see the employees bringing the message of safety through poems, calypso singing, and dramatisation.
