Awake Purified Drinking Water, a subsidiary of Kasapreko Company Limited, has presented a cheque for GH¢120,000 to the Cardiothoracic Centre at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra to commemorate this year’s World Heart Day.
It is a day set aside by the World Heart Federation to create awareness of cardiovascular diseases.
As part of activities to commemorate the day in Accra last Saturday, the management and staff of Korle Bu, together with some staff members of Awake Mineral Water, undertook a health walk.
The Chief Executive Officer of Stanbic Bank, Ghana, Mr Alhassan Andani, and a retired Nigerian footballer, Nwanko Kanu, also participated in the exercise which began at the forecourt of the Cardio Centre through the Bukom Boxing Arena, along some principal streets in James Town and back to the hospital premises.
There was also free medical screening for the general public.
Rationale
After the walk, the Marketing Manager of Awake, Mr Chris Addo-Sarkodie, told the Daily Graphic that the donation formed part of the company’s commitment to provide financial support for the less privileged and disadvantaged patients who could not afford medical care, heart transplant and heart surgeries.
“For the past two and a half years, we have been supporting the
National Cardiothoracic Centre. At the inception of Awake, the One4Life
campaign was also birthed.
Since then, we have been donating GH¢75,000 quarterly to the Cardio Centre,” he said.
Mr Addo-Sarkodie explained that as part of the One4Life campaign, “for every 500ml of Awake mineral water purchased,10p is set aside towards the support of the Cardio Centre.”
“We will keep on supporting the centre and continue educating people on issues relating to the heart to help reduce cardiovascular diseases in the country,” he added.
The Director of the National Cardiothoracic Centre, Dr Lawrence Sereboe, advised people to undertake regular medical checkups to know their health status.
“We need to be going for medical checkups even if we are not sick. Hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, physical inactivity and obesity, these are all risk factors for developing heart diseases and stroke,” he said.
Dr Sereboe also called on the general public to desist from eating fatty foods, saying “it is not expensive to eat healthily. We should incorporate vegetables such as kontomire and fruits in our daily diets and desist from eating all these French fries, fried rice, hamburgers.
When there is a lot of oil, it looks as if it is nice and delicious, but you are poisoning yourself,” he added.
He further entreated the youth to desist from smoking, adding that “an hour of smoking Shisha is equivalent to 100 sticks of cigarette.”
Appreciation
On behalf of the management, staff and beneficiaries at the centre, Dr Sereboe expressed appreciation to their benefactor for the continuous support over the years.
Source: Graphic Online
