Local services
A year ago, the city centre health promotion centre opened its doors, and the most critical move was Debrecen! location for the program’s screening tests and health-preserving sessions.
On October 15th, Diána Széles, deputy mayor of Debrecen, and Csaba Papp, director of the Debrecen Primary Care and Health Development Institute (Daefi), presented the first year of operation of the downtown health development centre in Szent Anna Street and its current programs.
Funded by UNICEF and Debrecen Municipality, the former dental office building on Szent Anna Street changed function a year ago. The initiative has already launched with the motto “Move, Debrecen!”: “Move for your health; move for your life!”
The health development centre opened a year ago at Szent Anna Street No. 11. It serves the city’s population as the centre of the movement and as a community space for health awareness. Debrecen is a caring city where both the individual and the community matter.
Diána Széles said that every room of the centre is fully utilized, including complex health screenings, exercise programs, and lifestyle counselling for children, young people, active adults, and the elderly, starting with mothers-to-be, even as a family program.
The” Move, Debrecen!” initiative started in the fall of 2021, and the health development centre has joined. The programs have now been attended by more than 120,000 people in the past three years. The health development centre implemented 881 programs in one year, visited by 11,105 people from Debrecen. It should be emphasized that the services of the health development centre can be used by the citizens of Debrecen – in possession of the Debrecen City Card- free of charge.
At the same time, anyone can attend the movement’s events and exercises—also free of charge—and many people from the surrounding settlements do.
The centre’s activities complement health care by serving health preservation and disease prevention. The Debrecen Institute of Primary Care and Health Development (Daefi), established in collaboration with the University of Debrecen and the city municipality, provides the professional background for all of this.
Diána Széles also singled out the so-called TSMT tournament among the numerous programs of the health development centre, designed to improve children’s movement coordination. In this form, it is only available free of charge in Debrecen.
Diána Széles highlighted the so-called Smart Kitchen program, which is the framework for lifestyle counselling. This program draws the attention of children and adults to the importance of healthy nutrition.
According to Csaba Papp, director of the Debrecen Primary Care and Health Development Institute (Daefi), one year is not a long time in the history of an initiative. Still, this one year was very effective and a source of pride. The functional change of the building with the support of Debrecen Municipality and the implementation of the programs with the help of UNICEF are significant achievements.
The health development centre’s pillars of activity are a series of health screening tests, disease prevention, health education, lifestyle counselling, and encouraging movement.
Csaba Papp also highlighted, among other things, the importance of the so-called sensorimotor movement coordination exercise, the TSMT exercise, which parents are also taught to practice. The introduction of the goosefoot exercise serves the health of preschool children.
The director also mentioned that, with the support of UNICEF, exercise programs were provided to nearly a hundred children who had fled Ukraine for two years, one day each week. The results of health screening tests among school-aged children in Debrecen showed that 58 percent of the children have locomotor problems. As a result of these experiences, a school program with two lessons a week plus the possibility of exercise for the children. In one year, this reduced the rate of musculoskeletal problems by 1 percent, which is a significant result in such a short time.
At the same time, children’s average weight increased by 1 percent, so more attention must be paid to lifestyle counseling and the development of appropriate forms of exercise.
Counselling and programs for weight control and diet are also popular. Health promotion consultations and training are also held for members of complete faculties and civil organizations dealing with health promotion and specific groups of patients – kidney patients, lung patients – and the professionals of the health promotion centre participate in health days in many settlements of the Hajdú-Bihar county and nursing homes.
Those interested can register for all health development centre programs on the website https://gondoskodovaros.hu.
Source: debrecen.hu | Photo credit: Facebook (Diána Széles)
