Up to 500 personnel attended the Garrison Health Fayre last week, which took place in the Princess Royal Barracks gymnasium.
 
The fayre aims to deliver informative health messages and literature to educate soldiers on the importance of daily health.
 
Various medical centre departments were represented, including Sexual Health, Smoking and Alcohol Cessation, Back Pain/Injury Prevention, Dental Health and Diabetes awareness.
 
Each stand was manned by a professional in that field, who talked soldiers through their respective subjects and were on hand to answer any questions.
 
Although usually each unit would have it’s own health fayre the number of units currently deployed on duty meant it made sense to organise a Garrison wide fayre.
 
Throughout the day soldiers attended the fayre in four two-hour blocks, each slot hosting roughly 120 soldiers.
 
SSgt Shammass Khan organised the event: ‘We’ve got five stands and they rotate around them, spending about twenty minutes at each one.  They get information from the stand and some literature to take away with them, then there’s a chance to pose questions.  If they’ve got a question they want to ask the professionals in confidence they can obviously come back at a later time and do that.’
 
Some of the stands had interactive elements to make the fayre a more hands on learning experience.
 
The smoking and alcohol Cessation had special beer goggles which soldiers could try on and attempt to drive a remote control car round a marked out course.
 
Meanwhile the blindfolded banana condom challenge at the sexual health stand incited much banter!
 
SSgt Shammass was confident that the soldiers would take something away from the fayre: ‘Hopefully they’ll apply it to their wider social circle and social situations.  So, for instance, when they go drinking they now know exactly what one unit of alcohol actually is.  An effort is also made to make sure soldiers apply the advice they’ve been given throughout the year and not just in the weeks immediately after the fayre.  There are various health subjects that are bought out every month or fortnight.  We try and advertise those initiatives on gymnasium message boards.  Health trainers will try and trickle through snippets of information to the soldiers whilst on PT or on the vehicle park.’