The term “Health Café” when read or heard for the first time gives us a lot of thoughts. In our day to day lives we connect to the term ‘Café’ mostly as a place where we sit and chit chat with friends in the company of good food and beverages. Our “Health Café” is not just limited to being a place that serves healthy food. It is a place where we serve food for thoughts, food for soul and fuel for our stomach.
This concept is a brain child of Dr Darshna Thakker(MD), practicing gynecologist from the city of Ahmedabad who has been into the field of Women healthcare and teen age counseling for about two decades now. During her journey she felt that there was a huge need to focus on emotional well being and preventive healthcare along with medical and surgical treatments. Unfortunately it is a myth that doctors have in their minds that counseling is a time waster. In fact Dr Darshna suggests that counseling is a one-time investment that saves a lot of time in future for both the doctor and the patients. In 20 years of busy clinical practice she has been able to manage time effectively and give impactful counseling sessions with the help of presentation, charts, flyers, videos, audio-clips, and other IEC material that she has designed especially for patient awareness and patient education purpose.
She is very happy to be instrumental in adding happy smiles the faces of her patients. With health café she has a vision to build a healthier society in tune with WHO’s definition of health i.e.”Health is a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” and hence she has not limited it to only women healthcare [Obstetrics and gynecology] but for the entire society by and large. It is an extended version of medical and surgical healthcare where disease management/ pre and post-surgical consultations must include patiently listening to the patients and their relatives, giving them scientific information that answers all their queries keeping in mind anxiety, apprehension and emotions of the affected individuals and their near dear ones.
Health Cafe is an extension of Health Management beyond medical and surgical health. It is a unique concept that we have not limited it to the four walls between which we’ve built the café, it’s beyond that. Health Café can be created any where as and when the need arises. We have strived to take the aura of positivity and good health to every individual we come across in our “Health Café”
When we are suffering from any illness we go to the hospital to visit a doctor. Since childhood or the time we start understanding things we have this stereotypical image of a doctor in a white coat with a stethoscope around his/her neck or in a green/blue OT dress sitting on a revolving chair in their chamber. The most interesting part about this concept is that, this is an idea that came into the mind of a medical practitioner doctor and counselor. The intention here is to make correct medical advice and supportive therapies available under one roof, keeping in mind the comfort of the patients as the first priority. Here the treatment will not be only limited to medicines, prescriptions will not only be limited to giving list of medicines but they will also have a lot of healing affirmations, motivational or self-help books, articles and soul-touching music to help the patient be healthy and happy in their lives.
According to WHO: “Health is a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” We all take care about treating even the smallest wounds or scratch visible on our bodies. We make sure to clean it up with an antiseptic liquid, apply ointment and take all necessary precautions to avoid further discomfort. But do we take care of our emotional scars? The wounds that are not apparently seen anywhere on our bodies but have an extremely deep rooted impact on our mind and cause us a lot of agony and pain.
At health café along with various workshops and support group activities we will be offering share-up sessions and one-one counseling with doctors. These activities will help in acknowledging and then healing those wounds which stay with us in our lives in form of resentment, guilt, fear and disturb our over all health.
We keep things really simple, the counseling session here is sharing a cup of coffee with your friend and your friend /philosopher/guide for that time is our doctor who would listen you and pat your back.
We also offer services virtually via e consultation and video conferencing. Over and above all that we keep on sending across positive messages and tips for healthy life via our Facebook page and website.
Around us we see that there are a lot of GURUS to guide us. Management Guru to teach us books of management and lessons of managing our accounts and other resources. Motivational guru to inject into us the motivation that we need to get up and do something.
But how about having someone who would guide you on simple things that matter in your everyday life. Someone who would help you align your emotions and energies with your actions, who would unconditionally keep on taking up different roles of a listener, a healer, a guide, a friend and a GURU.