Dalton Whitfield NAACP Health Fair coming to Mack Gaston Community Center on Feb. 19 – Daily Citizen

They call them silent killers. Many chronic diseases — such as high blood pressure and diabetes — may not present any symptoms until it is too late. But on Saturday, Feb. 19, Greater Dalton area residents will have the opportunity to get free screenings for many of these diseases and to learn more from healthcare professionals about how to manage them.

The Dalton Whitfield NAACP is hosting a health fair that day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Mack Gaston Community Center, 218 N. Fredrick St. in Dalton.

“The national theme for the NAACP for this year’s Black History Month is Black health and wellness,” said Tom Pinson, director of the community center and an officer with the Dalton Whitfield NAACP. “We (the Dalton Whitfield NAACP) thought about doing a health fair last year, but because of COVID-19 we decided not to.”

Pinson said the Dalton Whitfield NAACP was planning events for February, which is Black History Month, when Rachel Ogle, community outreach manager at Hamilton Health Care System, reached out to him.

“Rachel actually contacted me, asking if there was anything going on they could be involved in,” he said. “This is not only Black History Month, it’s Heart Health Month.”

The health fair began to come together, with more than a dozen groups taking part.

“We are targeting everyone in this community,” said Pinson. “We are particularly targeting the Black community because high blood pressure and diabetes are particular problems for that community. But we do want everyone to come out. The community center is a place that everyone comes to.” 

The CHI Memorial mammogram bus will be there providing mammograms. The bus takes health insurance, but it will also provide free mammograms to women without health insurance.

“We are going to offer free screenings — cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure and PSAs (prostate-specific antigen, a test for prostate cancer),” said Ogle of Hamilton.

Ogle said getting such tests is important for everyone but especially for Black people.

“Young Black people are living with diseases that are more typically found in older people in other racial groups,” she said. “High blood pressure is one of them. Diabetes is another. Black people 18 to 49 are two times as likely to die from these sorts of chronic diseases as white people. The earlier the better to treat any risk factors from these diseases.”

The health fair will offer COVID-19 vaccines. Pinson said if people have chronic diseases such as high blood pressure or diabetes it is particularly important to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The DEO Clinic, located in the community center, serves people in Whitfield and Murray counties who are uninsured and have limited financial resources. Heather Donahue, executive director of the DEO Clinic, said it will have people on hand at the health fair.

“We’ll be doing weight and BMI (body-mass index) checks,” she said. “We’ll be able to do blood pressure and glucose tests. We’ll have information on health topics such as glucose and blood pressure in both English and Spanish. Everywhere someone goes (at the health fair) there will be something they can learn from.”

Blood Assurance will have its blood donation bus at the community center during the fair.

“The blood supply is critical,” Ogle said. “It’s always lower in the winter, but COVID-19 has really impacted it, too. People are just not going to donation centers. A lot of healthcare professionals are regular donors, and many of them have been so overwhelmed they haven’t had the time to donate. So, we really need people to step up and donate blood.”

Visitors to the health fair will also have the opportunity to register to vote if they aren’t already registered. Nonpartisan elections and the Republican and Democratic primaries will be Tuesday, May 24.

Qualifying for local races will start Monday, March 7, at 9 a.m. in the Whitfield County Courthouse and end Friday, March 11, at noon. 

Donahue said the community center is the ideal location for a health fair.

“This community center is in such a great location,” she said. “There are a lot of people who walk here. Transportation can be an issue for some of the people who live in this area. They don’t have a car and rely on people to drive them places. So this may give them an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have to get some of these tests and to get some of the information that will be provided.”