Know Your Blood Pressure Day : 20th April 2013

'Know your Blood Pressure Day' is run in conjuction with the Stroke Association, and is on of Rotary's major public service initiatives. This is the first time that the Stroud Club had run the event, so everyone was keen to see how it went.

Stroke is a major cause of disability and death, and high blood pressure is one of it's main causes. Unfortunately, high blood pressure doesn't have any symptoms, so people can have dangerously high blood pressure without realising that anything is wrong, but it can be effectively treated once diagnosed. The objective of the day is to offer the citizens of Stroud free blood tests so they can be refered to their GP's for followup where necessary. The Stroke Association estimates that 40% of strokes could be avoided if eveyone had their blood pressure checked.

For the day, we hired the Baptist Church Hall next to the Saturday morning Farmers' Market, which runs from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm and is always thronged with people. The Market organisers gave us a free Guest Table right outside the hall to display our posters and literature, and a team of Rotarians went around the market inviting people to come and be tested.

Our first customer was David Drew, the Labour candidate for the Stroud Parliamentary Consituency. Following him there was a steady stream of people, and by 10:30 we had the problem of success - a queue with a waiting time of 5 to 10 minuites. We had planned to have just one testing station working, but luckily we had the spaces and resources to open a second one.

During the morning, the local organiser of the Stroke Association dropped in to see how we were doing and was very complementary about what she saw. There is no doubt that the day was a great success, and this was due, in equal measure, to the support of the local medical profession, and to the teamwork of the member of the club and the Inner Wheel. In addition, everyone seemed to enjoy the day.

We will never know if we have made any difference to anyone's life as a result of our event, but if we have managed to alert even a few people to the dangers of high blood pressure, we may have made a significant difference.