Experts brainstorm on healthy executives

• Say about 22.7% of Nigerians are hypertensive

A seminar series designed to address the challenges of hypertension, diabetes, cancer, among others, and make every executive healthier, the natural way comes up on September 4 to 10 at Spicery Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Organised by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Lagos Atlantic Conference in conjunction with an international organization known as NUMA, a group of specialist doctors that offer medical services across the globe. The seminar, which will examine a “New Approach to Health in a changing world” is targeted at all executives.

Speaking on the forthcoming event, Pastor Jacob E. Umoru who addressed journalists alongside executive members of the church, noted that many executives be it private or corporate organizations overwork themselves and could hardly rest.

Umoru, a trained medical doctor, stated that for the reasons enumerated above the Adventist Health Ministries’ mission to hold the seminar was aimed at educating all executives that health is wealth. The seminar, which is free, according to Pastor Umoru, “is also to demonstrate God’s love by promoting whole person health principles to Adventist Church leaders, members and the community at large as well assisting people from all ages, gender, and ethnicity in reaching their full potentials for wholeness and a productive abundant life. Health ministry is the gospel of Christ illustrated, the message of God practised. Without it, the gospel witness is muted”.

Shielding more light on the event, the Chief Executive Officer of Leadership and Vision Limited, Elder Seyi Wright, said “one of the features of this seminar is that it would target environment and people who have health challenges and that is critical factor here. The programme would actually enhance corporate profitability and productivity. So it’s a kind of programme that if I have a choice as human resource management of an organization I would tell my people to attend this programme. Many CEOs, Human Resource people and managers have tried to make their people attain work place excellence but they have failed and as the pastor had said, they are tired, anxious, overstressed and under performing. So this programme provides an opportunity for work place excellence and what that means is that each executive can go to work and operate at an optimal level of health. It means the organization will be very productive.

Some one who is not able to meet his key performance index is because he is overstressed and often times makes mistakes and all of a sudden recognizes from this seminar that he should change his lifestyle and as he changes his lifestyle goes back to work on Monday what happens to the organization is that his productivity goes up significantly and the organization becomes more profitable. This is not just for the top man alone but any person that has dealing with customers or is leading one or two people is a professional and even someone who is not leading is an executive. So, there are many fundamental changes that CEOs are facing and the seminar is not just for the executives or Lekki or Ikoyi axis, but Lagos State and even beyond they can attend.”

He added that, “statistics available have shown that so many executives in the world today are overstressed. In fact, executives have been known to have made unnecessary mistakes, some have slumped and died in their offices, at car parks and this seminar will expose the root causes.”

A consultant public health physician, Dr. Olusola B. Faleye, who is of the view that the seminar would help people to create wealth, said: “Why are we focusing on the executives it is because all diseases in the world can be classified to be either communicable or non-communicable or non-infectious and the emphasis for Africa as the developing continent has been that infectious diseases like malaria, diarrhea and up to date they still account for a lot of deaths in different countries but gradually we’ve been experiencing epidemic of non-communicable diseases.