Vodafone Healthline: A decade of saving lives, promoting healthy lifestyle

After touching hearts and transforming lives for the past 10 years, season 10 of the Vodafone Healthline ended with a quick review of the outstanding stories and most critical interventions that were timely in saving lives.

It was heart-warming to hear eloquent Grace, episode one beneficiary, talk about how the timely intention of Vodafone Healthline saved her life and allowed her to go back to school to continue with her education.

Viewers will also remember Joseph, the young two-year-old boy with a bulging stomach who could go two weeks without passing stool unless induced by a bulb syringe.

His grandparents called the timely intervention of Vodafone a ‘miracle’.

Another beneficiary, Jayden, was born without genitalia. After three surgeries to correct the anomaly, his teary mother expressed her heartfelt gratitude to Vodafone Healthline.

Several similar stories have characterised this 10th season, putting joy in the hearts of enormous beneficiary families.

‘Massaging a baby’s head helps to shape it’

In-house doctors debunked claims that massaging a baby’s head with warm water helps shape it.

Dr Yalley explained that some genetic factors, such as the shape of the mother or father’s heads, can contribute to a child’s head shape. Therefore, warm water massages do not affect the head shape.

Dr Aba also supported the assertion that warm water does not give shape to the head, but helps in smoothening the rough edges or bumps that may develop as the child grows.

Adding that certain tribes, like Ashantis, do that a lot and have a term for their heads based on that philosophy.

Myth Buster Segment reviewed

The last episode of the season was also an opportunity to review some of the mind-boggling myths held by the public that had to be explained with in-depth health analysis and debunked when necessary.

Viewers may remember engaging stories such as ‘A vagina is permanently stretched during childbirth’, ‘chocolate is an aphrodisiac’ and ‘Coke and salt can resolve a runny stomach.’

No doubt many viewers found the Myth Busters segment exciting and educative.

Specialists’ practical sensitization segments

The season has hosted knowledgeable resource persons, such as Dr James Aggrey, a Trauma Surgeon from 37 Military Hospital, who demonstrated how to respond to emergency accident situations and deliver first aid efficiently without causing further harm or damage to the victim.

Likewise, Dr Richard Dei-Asamoa, a Specialist Psychiatrist from the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, gave a breakdown of how to handle depression and the urge for suicide. Dr Padi Aryetey, a gynaecologist, also came on board to educate the public on kidneys.

Jewels in the kitchen, a new segment, was dominated by two keywords that are, no doubt, now part of many people’s vocabulary; anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant.

This week in medicine was vital in providing some historical background to how certain breakthroughs were made in the health sector and how they developed to be common in today’s modern world.

From the first surgery to separate Siamese twins in Ghana, to the first penile scrotum surgery, among others.

A Hot Seat Segment

In-house expert, Dr Aba Folson, was on the hot seat to provide insight into her field as a cardiologist.

She stressed that the heart is the most important organ in the human body because it pumps the blood that contains all the nutrients that the rest of the body needs to function.

“When your heart stops working, you are dead. So, that makes it a very important organ in the body. It is in the left chest region, not the middle, as some people point to when even they feel pains in the chest,” she said.

According to her, when unhealthy lifestyles and other sicknesses like diabetes, hypertension, and high sugar level, among others, set in, the function of the heart is affected, which leads to heart attack and heart failure.

She named a drug called aspirin as crucial in managing heart issues. However, because of its side effects, it is usually recommended when things are extreme; hence she admonished viewers to desist from prescribing it for themselves.