Established in March 2011, Panacea Medical & Wellness Centrestrives to live up to its name with a vision to become a leading healthcare organisation that helps patrons achieve and maintain an optimum level of health and wellness. The centre has aligned its CSR activities with their philosophy of preventive health andon its values of knowledge, commitment and trust.
It aims to conduct as many activities as possible to make everyone aware about the importance of preventive health and educate people about common diseases and the steps they can take individually to prevent disease.
“We strive to fulfil our responsibility towards members of the community by creating health and wellness mindfulness via different avenues. We are ever willing to spare our staff and resources for CSR campaigns to serve the community,” said Sonia Satham, Director of Corporate Communications & Operations at Panacea.
A significant CSR initiative that the centre carries out is the “Wellness Day” for corporates.During one of their complimentary wellness days at a Dubai based corporate, it was found that a 30-year-old male was detected with high BP (180/100 mm Hg), high random blood sugar (235 mg%) and high BMI (32) during our testing. The patient was young, asymptomatic and completely unaware of his health status. His results were totally unexpected. The medical staff at Panacea counselled him about the importance of taking prompt action.
Sonia adds, “Cases such as this reaffirm our belief that wellness days are important and useful. Currently, we are reaching out to our existing patients, their families and communities & corporates known to us.” She also expresses her desire to reach out to more people – those who can contribute such as health coaches, family counsellors and nutritionists; and those who can benefit such as the HR managers of local corporates, managers of ladies’ clubs and health conscious individuals; which will certainlyhelp in organising better wellness days for more people.
We strive to fulfil our responsibility towards members of the community by creating health and wellness events and are ever willing to spare our staff and resources for CSR campaigns to serve the community
She further goes on to inform us that according to the WHO, a whopping 422 million people are affected by diabetes and 2.09 million by breast cancer. Keeping these statistics in mind, the centre also organises annual diabetes awareness and breast cancer awareness events to serve the communities around us.
So far Panacea has done complimentary testing for their own patients and staff as well as the staff of CSR friendly organisations such as Mashreq Bank, Bodylines Health club Arjan Rotana, Trovicor, Paramount hotels, GFK Retail marketing, EBIX Asia Pacific, Al Mawrid Printing press, Enhance UAE- W J Towell Group and several other groups, for which it waspresented with the Health Award for Distinguished CSR by Health magazine in 2017.
In the last three years,Panacea has also organised CSR initiatives for individuals such as the “Walk with us campaign”, the “Panacea plate initiative” and the “Heart health drive” that were again well received.
In addition, the centre also regularly organises seminars at the clinic for staff and patrons on topical subjects. It has also conducted seminars for nurseries, schools, clubs, banks and local and multinational companies. To date Panacea has conducted more than 60 seminars.
Recently, due to the lockdown restrictions, the centre has moved its awareness activities to webinars for corporates and groups. “Due to the pandemic, many people have shown an interest in topics such as “How to boost your immunity” and “Dos and don’ts of returning to work”. We also send out a newsletter that includes a “Health Focus” section with tips on a wellness topic of interest,” said Sonia.
She goes on to say, with a bit of disappointment though, that it is a challenge to get the majority of people interested in their own health; as they seem to be more interested in other things and ignore their wellbeing until they experience a significant symptom. People prioritise their work and entertainment while physical activity and health awareness take a back seat is what she has observed.
On a different front, the centre in its attempt to go green, has also moved from hard copy records to electronic medical records and have greatly reduced their paper usage by using e-tablets for registrations. They also do their best to recycle whatever little amount of paper still used using a responsible recycling company called Shredex.
Health & wellness education is a very important part of creating a preventive health mindset and the centre gives credit to its team having a selfless mindset that has madethe CSR campaign tick.
Thanking the team at Panacea for supporting these initiatives wholeheartedly without expecting anything in return, Sonia says, “I am trying to make a difference through Panacea’s ongoing CSR efforts, and I hope more people will join in soon.”