The Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA) has announced a free health screening exercise for all practising journalists by the end of March this year.

President of the GJA, Affail Monney, who launched the media health train campaign for journalists across the country Wednesday in Accra, said it is aimed at helping all media professionals to gain control over and improve their health status.

Mr. Monney announced that GJA would be partnering with impact 360 international — a research, advocacy and empowerment organisation— to provide free healthcare screening to journalists.

“Journalists’ death is very alarming and there is the need for us to start taking our health serious, our work is stressful and sometimes dangerous but we hardly have time to rest or seek medical care,” he highlighted.

The health screening would take place at the various media houses before moving to all the regions in Ghana.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Impact 360 International, Clifford Ladzikpo, insisted that Ghana cannot afford to lose its journalists to preventable diseases.

“We are seeking to ensure equity, accessibility amongst the journalists and we are bringing the health screening to the door steps of our journalist due to their busy schedule,” he added.

A guest speaker of the press launch, Edwin Arthur, urged all journalists across the country to take advantage and participate in the health screening campaign. He also appealed to the media owners to allow their journalists to join the campaign

The media health screening campaign is expected to start before the end of March 2019, which covers every individual working in the various media houses.

Dr. Juliana Enos, Senior Research Fellow Lecturer at the University of Ghana’s College of Health Science, who chaired the occasion, reiterated that the campaign would orient citizens to regularly check their health statues.

“There is a key relationship between health and development and as the journalists play a vital role in the country’s development has triggered the implementation of the health screening,” she stated.

Dubbed ‘The Media Health Train’, the campaign is an initiative of Impact 360 International to screen media professionals and increase awareness about regular screening as tool to reduce preventable deaths and chronic disease among the media practitioners in Ghana.