Amandala columnist, Glen explained in one of his recent articles about the importance of people over 50 getting a yearly health checkup, and exhorted his readers to “man up and take it.” Glen ran us through all the rigors of the examination, the embarrassment of undressing and having “your butt exposed”, of having your blood drawn, and the anxiety while waiting for the results. Glen said he knows “that it can be scary, but after you are given a clean bill of health, all the suffering you heaped on yourself is worthwhile”, and “if something is wrong … there is usually a great chance that it can be corrected!”
Glen said he “can’t imagine people, especially men, feeling that something is wrong inside them, and just wishing it away.” He said he has “lost friends who were afraid of doctors.”
Medical Port, in the story “8 Reasons Why Regular Health CheckUps Are Important”, said regular health checkups are like a health status report card … they can help detect potential health issues at their earliest, most manageable stages; provide an opportunity for healthcare professionals to assess your risk factors and offer guidance on lifestyle changes that can help prevent various illnesses; give doctors the opportunity to better monitor your condition’s progression if you have a chronic condition; and make it possible to ensure that you are up-to-date on essential immunizations, thus protecting you from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Medical Port says regular health checkups also help establish a baseline for your health, since your healthcare provider can track changes in your health; help reduce healthcare costs in the long run; help promote peace of mind; and serve as a positive example to friends and family.
The evidence appears overwhelming for the annual checkup, but as the columnist noted, not everyone is visiting the doctor’s office yearly. Lynn Community Health Center in the U.S., in the article, “The Significance of Yearly Physical Exams”, said data from the American Association of Retired Persons showed “only 20% of U.S. adults get an annual physical.”
Nuffield Health in the UK, in the article, “One in four Brits have never had a health check”, said “the most common reasons people avoided health checks” were that (1) they felt the check was unnecessary (23%); (2) they had fear of the results (17%); (3) there was a lack of time available (13%); (4) there were concerns about the cost (10%); (5) they struggled with a feeling of embarrassment (5%). Nuffield Health said “one in three (30%) people aged 55-64, and one in four (25%) people aged over 65 have never had a health check”, and “those aged 25 – 30 were the most health-conscious group, with 80% of them claiming to have had at least one health check in their lives.”
Per capita, Cuba is one of the poorest countries in our hemisphere, but their citizens receive the best healthcare. Fiona Hill, in an article on BBC News titled, “Prevention better than cure in Cuban healthcare system,” said: “Imagine your doctor knocking at your door to give not just you, but your whole family, an annual health check-up.” Ms. Hill said that, apart from “taking blood pressure, checking hearts,” the doctor will ask questions and make observations, assess “anything which could be affecting the health of you and your family.” Hill said that in her clinic in Old Havana, Dr. Tanya Rosa de la Cuevas Hill and her nurse look after 334 families, and annually “every single one of their 1,287 patients will undergo [a full health check-up], often at their homes … and there’s no getting out of it either.”
As stated in the Medical Port report, it is wise for an individual to do an annual checkup, and from the reports we looked at in this article, it is obvious that the Cuban system is the only one that achieves that end. Unfortunately, that’s not a guide to get more Belizeans to do annual checkups, because in Cuba there’s no getting out of it.
If we go by the Nuffield Health report, 45% of people, because they think it unnecessary, they fear the result, or feel embarrassed, won’t voluntarily do one. We could presume that cost, a deterrent to 10% in the UK, would account for more shirkers in Belize—that because people in the UK, the US too, have so much more money in their pockets than we do.
It seems a task for giants, for the leaders of our health system to get our people to do annual checkups. But based on its benefits, every effort must be made to get us to man up and take it.
Belize had to send a tough message to Israel
Mr. Leopold Miller, in a story in last week’s Reporter, made an impassioned call on the government to restore its “allegiance with” Israel. In his article, Miller emphasized Israel’s historical right to the land, and attempted to justify their response to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas. Miller said, “Israel has repeatedly sought peace and offered land concessions in exchange for recognition and peace with its neighbors. This includes giving up the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, and offering Gaza and parts of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority—only to be met with terrorism and violence from groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”
For the record, much of the “thanks” for Israel withdrawing from the Sinai go to US president Jimmy Carter and the 1978/79 Camp David Accords. In respect to Israel’s other peace offerings, surely Mr. Miller knows there is another side to that story.
Miller said, “Israel has long been Belize’s ally”, that Israel “stands as a model of resilience, innovation, and democracy in one of the world’s most volatile regions”, and he wondered what Belize’s response would be if we faced aggression similar to what Israel faces. Mr. Miller said: “Supporting Israel is not merely a political stance; it is a recognition of historical truth and a defense of a nation whose resilience in the face of overwhelming odds should be admired, not condemned.”
It is certain that Mr. Miller is not alone in his position. Indeed, Belizeans, the majority of whom are Christians, didn’t want to break off relations with Israel. But this regime that presently holds power in Israel, there isn’t anything saintly about it. As noted in Al Jazeera in November 2023, Belize “suspended ties with Israel due to its ‘indiscriminate bombing’ of the Gaza Strip …”
This Israel was a strong supporter of Apartheid in South Africa. This Israel exported US$13 billion worth of military hardware in 2023 (data from Breaking Defense at breakingdefense.com). In 1977 this Israel, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, stepped in and supplied arms to Guatemala when US president Jimmy Carter told the Guatemalan government to end its gross human rights violations, its genocide.
A history of the rise of this present regime in Israel that has scorched the earth in Gaza without a care for the innocent children, women, and men can be found in the book Parallel Realities, by Eric Black. The following clip, an excerpt from a story in Frontline which was reproduced by PBS (at pbs.org), is from a chapter in Parallel Realities titled “Resolution 242 and the aftermath of 1967”:
“Before 1967, Menachem Begin was an outsider in Israeli politics, shunned as too radical, expansionist and intransigent by founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. But in the weeks leading to the 1967 war, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Ben-Gurion’s successor, brought Begin into the cabinet as a symbol that the crisis required national unity. It was a breakthrough toward respectability for Begin. Although he later resigned from the cabinet, he became prime minister himself in 1977. His hardline Likud bloc has dominated Israeli politics ever since.”
The present prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is the leader of the hardline Likud Party.