Health Ministry Launches Revised Corporate Wellness Manual

The Ministry of Health and Wellness has launched a revised Corporate Wellness Manual as well as a physical activity page.

The manual will be available on the Ministry’s www.moh.gov.jm website as of September 17, while the physical activity page can be accessed at https://www.moh.gov.jm/physical-activity/

They form part of the Ministry’s drive to encourage Jamaicans to incorporate healthier lifestyle practices in their lives and daily routines, in a bid to reduce non-communicable diseases and improve mental wellness.

Speaking at the virtual launch on September 16, Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, congratulated the team at the Ministry for unveiling another component of the wellness agenda.

He said the initiatives are crucial in encouraging persons to make healthier choices, finding the balance and living wholesome lives.  

“Life challenges us in all aspects and if we are not careful [we] get caught up in doing what is expected of us in terms of work, commitments of one form or another that we forget to take care of ourselves and we measure success based on those achievements rather than our state of mind, physical state and oftentimes we meet our demise achieving other levels of success, but ignoring ourselves,” he said.

Meanwhile, Minister of State in the Ministry, Hon. Juliet Cuthbert Flynn, urged Jamaicans to make the concerted effort to make healthier lifestyle choices, particularly since there are several other competing priorities, which include work and home, among other things. 

She encouraged persons to plan their activities throughout the day and make the commitment to self-actualise them. 

“Make that commitment to yourself to say I want to make sure that I am living a good metabolic lifestyle which will be incorporating better eating habits and, of course, not living a sedentary lifestyle…  . I think there are several things that persons can do to actually help them [and that] is to plan, and if  you don’t plan, it is just not going to happen with all the commitments… and the other things happening,” she said.

Director of Health Promotion and Education in the Ministry, Takese Foga, explained that the goal of workplace wellness is to create an environment that supports healthy lifestyle practices, both for employers and employees.

“To get started, you must have buy-in from management, then establish a committee and then do various types of assessments, because, ultimately, you want employees’ interests and their needs to be met. After you’ve gotten started that way, then you need to develop the programme. In developing the programme, you have certain essentials such as social, physical, spiritual, mental and occupational,” she said.

She informed that the revised Corporate Wellness Manual for the workplace was developed in 2005, following the development of the policy for the promotion of healthy lifestyles in 2004.