57 Sabah primary schools have Young Doctors’ Club

KOTA KINABALU: About 57 primary schools in the state had implemented the Young Doctors Club programme involving  1,498 pupils.

Deputy Health Minister Datuk Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin said in Sabah, about 24,000 pupils had benefited from the programme.

“The objective of this programme is to empower students with health knowledge and skills in order to improve their own health and also their peers’,” she said.

Rosnah’s speech was read by assistant director of the state Health Department Dr Enoch Tan at the closing of the fourth convention of the Young Doctors’ Club at Kolej Sains Kesihatan Bersekutu, Bukit Padang Luyang here yesterday.

The objectives of the Young Doctors’ Club in primary schools are to help students, their peers and family members adopt a healthy lifestyle, develop students as role-models, as a guide towards the adoption of a healthy lifestyle,  encourage students to help health staff and teachers  organise healthy activities in schools, strengthen the schools’ effort in improving the health of students, encourage parents or guardians to give appropriate attention to  students’ health and  strengthen the collaboration between the Ministry of Health and Education Department in an effort to encourage good health practices among students.

Meanwhile, the activities  planned for the students  include helping schools  promote a clean, healthy and safe environment, helping health staff and teachers organise health activities in school, inform the school authorities of the occurrence of diseases or health problems and treat simple injuries.

Rosnah said the Ministry of Health and state health department are looking at this programme  as an activity that should be implemented in other primary schools to share the benefits with other students.

She said the state health department will be taking the initiative to train more teachers to be the students’ guide when practising their programmes.