In co-operation with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE), Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), and Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) organized two workshops on the implementation of the WHO growth chart program on school students in Qatar aged 5-19 years.Around 60 participants from the new nurses in schools and program supervisors from the MoPH and the PHCC participated in the two workshops. Acting Director of the Health Promotion Department at the MoPH Dr Salah al-Yafei said: "The MoPH has been implementing the growth plans program in the State of Qatar schools since the academic year 2014-2015, as part of the ministry's attention and concern on children's health. The aim of implementing the program is to provide a database and build a surveillance and monitoring system for growth of the school students in the three school stages (primary, preparatory and secondary), as well as early detection of cases of developmental disorders that may be related to malnutrition represented by underweight, short stature and dwarfism on the one hand or overweight and obesity on the other hand, and referring these cases to their primary health care centers for follow-up and treatment."He also stressed that the implementation of the growth chart program aims to reduce the burden of obesity and associated chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer. The program comes in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030, through its contribution to promoting the health of the Qatari community members to build a healthy generation.The application of the growth charts program on school students, taking weight and height measurements, and calculating body mass index is one of the most important preventive and curative services that help in the early detection and diagnosis of malnutrition cases among school students, and the student's health file is completed and followed up within the school and his health condition is recorded by using growth charts and the necessary graph to evaluate the student's growth.The main objective of organizing the training workshops on the Growth Chart Program is to train school nurses in the State of Qatar on how to use the new growth forms prepared by the World Health Organization to achieve the objectives of the program, training on the use of weight and height devices recommended by the World Health Organization to take students' measurements, how to record these measurements on the growth form, and using the growth problem management protocol for early detection of malnutrition among students, in addition to following up and keeping growth forms within the student's health file in the school health clinic.
October 19, 2023 | 08:52 PM