Health professionals have called for a shift from reactive to preventive healthcare, urging Ghanaians to adopt healthy lifestyles, undergo regular medical checks and adhere strictly to prescribed medication schedules to prevent avoidable illnesses and deaths.
The call was made during the 21st Series of the MTN Ghana Timekeeping Dialogue, which explored the relationship between time, everyday health decisions and longevity under the theme, “Time is Health: How Timely Medical Decisions and Healthy Habits Save Lives.”
Opening the discussion, Georgina Asare Fiagbenu, Acting General Manager for Sustainability and Shared Value at MTN Ghana and host of the Timekeeping Dialogue Series under Transformational Leadership Concepts (TLC), said time was closely linked to life and health.
“Time is life, time is health, and life is the total of the amount of time we have on this Earth,” she said, urging participants to reflect on how they manage their health and daily lives.
Traditional leader Togbe Kwasinyi Kakaklolo Agyeman V, who joined briefly to deliver a welcome remark, also encouraged participants to pay attention to the contributions of the medical experts and share the knowledge gained.
He observed that time was humanity’s most valuable resource and that understanding personal health responsibilities was essential to preserving it.
A Public Health and Preventive Medicine Physician, Dr Bright Sasu Baabu, explained that the human body reaches its physical peak in the mid-to-late 20s, after which gradual degenerative changes begin to occur.
He said the changes made it important for people to pay attention to their health as they advanced in age, particularly because several non-communicable diseases could develop silently for years before symptoms became noticeable.
Dr Baabu cited stroke, heart attacks, hypertension, diabetes and various cancers as conditions with long latent periods, stressing the need for people to seek medical attention even when they felt healthy.
He noted that while global average life expectancy was about 73 years, Ghana’s was approximately 65 years, and argued that preventive healthcare could help people detect health problems early.
“That is why our healthcare model must shift from a curative approach to a preventive one. We need to visit our doctors while we are still healthy so we can stay healthy,” he said.
Dr Baabu encouraged people across different age groups to regularly monitor key health indicators, including blood pressure, Body Mass Index (BMI), fasting blood glucose and cholesterol levels.
He also recommended gender- and age-appropriate cancer screening as part of routine health monitoring.
The dialogue further examined medication adherence, with Pharmacist Dr Akosua Bandoh explaining why taking medicines at the prescribed times was important for effective treatment.
She said every medication had a therapeutic window, which was the concentration range required in the bloodstream to produce the desired medical effect.
According to her, the half-life of a drug — the time it takes for its concentration in the body to reduce by half — helps determine how frequently it should be taken.
Dr Bandoh cautioned that delaying doses could cause the concentration of a medicine to fall below the level required to treat a condition, while taking doses too close together could increase the risk of toxicity and severe side effects.
She also explained that medicines came in different formulations, including immediate-release and extended-release types, which were designed to work differently in the body.
On the practice of stopping medication once symptoms improve, Dr Baabu warned that feeling better did not necessarily mean a person had recovered fully.
He said stopping antibiotics or other antimicrobial medicines before completing the prescribed course could allow disease-causing organisms to survive and cause a relapse.
Dr Baabu further linked improper use and incomplete treatment of antimicrobial medicines to the development of drug resistance.
He cited chloroquine resistance among malaria parasites as an example, explaining that widespread improper use and incomplete dosages contributed to the loss of its effectiveness in Ghana, leading to the adoption of Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs).
Dr Bandoh also cautioned against the use of leftover medicines, saying patients sometimes returned to community pharmacies with old medication boxes in an attempt to treat recurring symptoms.
She warned that medicines stored for long periods under unsuitable conditions could lose their potency, while expired or improperly stored drugs could expose users to unwanted side effects.
She urged patients to seek professional medical advice when symptoms returned instead of restarting old prescriptions or engaging in self-medication.
The dialogue highlighted several practical steps for protecting personal health, including routine medical examinations, monitoring key health indicators, taking medicines at the times directed by healthcare professionals and seeking medical advice before changing or stopping treatment.
Participants were also encouraged to avoid self-medication with leftover prescription drugs and to prioritise early detection rather than waiting for serious symptoms to develop.
A1 Radio | 101.1Mhz | Solomon Agame
