A clinic for the aged located at the Ministries in Cape Coast, on Tuesday organized a free health screening for government workers and the general public to mark the health facility's first anniversary.

The exercise, conducted mainly by the nurses of the clinic, involved the checking of beneficiaries' blood pressure (BP) and is expected to continue till the end of June.

Mrs. Lydia Ofori-Atta, the Superintendent Community Health Nurse in charge of the clinic, which mainly focuses on providing free health care for the aged in Cape Coast, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that BP was a major cause of death among people in recent times.

She regretted that instead of people checking their BP regularly and living healthy lifestyle as well as maintaining balanced diets, they rather attribute sudden deaths to witchcraft.

Mrs. Ofori-Atta said that it was high time people took their health needs seriously by eating balanced diets, having enough rest and avoiding self-medication; exercising and visiting the hospital regularly for routine checkups.

She was hopeful that the exercise would serve as a platform for people to know their health status to enable them live healthy lives.

Mrs Ofori-Atta commended the Member of Parliament for Cape Coast, Mr. Ebo Barton Oduro, for ensuring the establishment of the clinic a year ago.

She said a similar exercise would be held later in August this year by the clinic and added that it would include HIV/AIDS and diabetes screening.

After being screened, patients were counseled on the state of their BP as well as on the dos and don’ts of BP.**