Health Fair in the Patio de Diseño

On December 16, the fair "Traditional and alternative medicines for health care" was held, organized by the Postgraduate Department of the University of Azuay.

The event began with words of welcome from Pedro Martínez, Director of the Postgraduate Program in Family and Community Medicine:

“The idea of ​​this fair is to know that integrality within medicine is something absolutely important. People are not only a physical and biological part, but also a psychological, spiritual and social part ”.

The fair was aimed above all at older adults, with a vision of integrality towards traditional and alternative medicine, with the aim of bringing doctors, traditional agents and families closer to working together in search of well-being.

Traditional medicine - through a set of health practices, beliefs and knowledge based on the use of natural resources, spiritual therapies and manual techniques - also seeks to maintain individual and community health.

"Usually, doctors have seen traditional health agents as enemies, but they really are our friends, we must work together because they are people who have ancestral knowledge that doctors, from a scientific point of view, are eminently unknown," said Martínez.  

The Family and Community Medicine Postgraduate students sought to have an approach with the community, through different proposals such as: the care of elderly patients and children, and a healthy Covid-19 school.

"The pandemic has forced us to have virtual classes, but it does not mean that there is not an outside world that we can make visible and enjoy, that is why we encourage children and parents to join in traditional games," said Andrea Beltrán, postgraduate Family and Community Medicine.

Similarly, María Elisa Torres said: "We try to make the community in general know about food groups, how they contribute to our health and in this way promote the practice of healthy eating to prevent long-term diseases."

UDA Correspondent