Health awareness event helps to raise over £3,000 or hospital charity

A bid to raise mens’ health awareness has resulted in a special event being held with over £3,000 being raised for a hospital charity.

A head shave along with a huge raffle was held at the Station Hill Social Club, in Bury St Edmunds, attended by over 70 people and organised by Manuela Skill, who is a service desk engineer in the digital IT department at the West Suffolk Hospital.

Adie’s Barbers, in St Andrews Street North, supplied three hairdressers to cut the hair of six sponsored volunteers and along with the raffle, which included a host of prizes from restaurant to meat vouchers and Tesco to Wilkinson gifts, a total of £3,373.55 was raised which has been donated to the My WiSH Charity, which supports the work of the hospital.

Manuela decided to stage the event as she felt mens’ health awareness was not a major priority for males and wanted to encourage them to get tested for various cancers including prostate, testicle and breast cancer and initially set a target of £1,000.

But she was thrilled to triple that amount from the evening which was held on October 22 and included a talk by Jan Golding, an urology nurse practitioner at the hospital.

She said one in eight men suffer from prostate cancer and while a PSA blood test is not always accurate she advises men over 50 to have it done.

Meanwhile, bladder cancer has a high incidence in smokers with the first symptom being visible blood in urine while the signs to look our for in penile cancer is soreness and redness that does not get better after four weeks. She also advised younger men to “get to know what your testicles feel like” to detect any early forms of testicular cancer and the symptoms for breast cancer is a lump, a discharge from the nipple and any change in its shape or colour.

One volunteer raised over £200 thanks to his employer with his union adding a further donation while Kevin Stutters raised £840 through sponsorship.

Manuela was prompted to organise the event after her husband Wayne, who is a tutor at Highpoint Prison, suffered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Street Disorder) while serving with the Army in Germany, where the couple met.

She said it took her five years to get the help he required and it made her think about mens’ health and how to improve it.

She said: “Women tend to talk openly and a lot more about themselves than men, like if they are going through the menopause, so I thought I’d try and help the men. There’s so much in the media for breast cancer for women but not for men.

“In my head I only thought that I would raise £1,000 but I never through that I would raise the final amount. I got so many fantastic raffle prizes from stores and shops in the town, it was amazing.”

Tanya Fifield, the fundraising officer for My WiSH said: “Manuela was so passionate about raising awareness of men’s health and was eager to get Jan Golding there to educate those who don’t know signs and symptoms of different cancers in men and try to get them to have health checks. The night was brilliant, Jan’s talk, head shaves and raffle were so well organised. I am so pleased for Manuela who smashed her target.”