Food, fun and prizes at the annual PMH Health Fair on Friday

Pocahontas Memorial Hospital is hosting its annual Health Fair on Friday. The event aims to improve health and wellness in the community by providing low-cost medical screenings and other lab services. Susan Wilkins is the Public Relations and Special Projects Coordinator at PMH and she helps organize the Health Fair.

“Twenty five years ago the administration and some of the staff just realized there were a lot of people in the community who weren’t seeing their doctor, and weren’t getting health issues taken care of,” says Wilkins. “And so they just decided they were going to start Health Fairs.”

Wilkins said May is their busiest month when it comes to community outreach. Throughout the month of May, PMH staff will be traveling around Pocahontas County, offering low cost health screenings, but the main Health Fair event will be held at the hospital on Friday.

“This Friday, May 2nd, we’re doing the big Health Fair here at the hospital,” she says. “And that’s when we bring in exhibitors from outside; we have door prizes all day long, and food, just a lot of fun health-related events. The Lions Club will be here. They’re going to do free eye screenings. We have a hearing company out of Elkins who is coming; they’re going to do free hearing screenings. A lot of the local community organizations are going to be here, like the Family Resource Network, our Diabetes Support Group is going to be here, but we have over 30 folks who are coming up.”

Wilkins said all the lab results are screened by a qualified nurse, and the Health Fair provides affordable lab screenings for folks that might not have the opportunity to be screened otherwise.

“Because of our Health Fairs, over the last 25 years, dozens of really critical health conditions have been discovered,” Wilkins says. “We have discovered anemia’s, and low blood cell counts and thyroid issues, leukemia, diabetes, bleeding disorders, and other cancers. A lot of folks who come out for these blood screenings, they don’t see a doctor on a regular basis, so it’s really a critical service for our community.”

Wilkins said if nothing else, attendees at the annual PMH Health Fair always have a good time.

“It’s a time for PMH to just really show off our facility and welcome everyone in just for a fun day,” Wilkins says. “We open the doors for the public at 7 a.m. and we go until noon. They’ll be doing the blood draws that entire time, our exhibitors will be here that entire time, and then for a complete schedule of when we’ll be going into other communities across the county, that is in The Pocahontas Times or it’s on our website, www.pmhwv.org.”