Hundreds of men lined up at the Seventh Day Adventist Church yesterday as Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre hosted their fourth annual men’s health free screening.

The free event on King Street was open to all men, particularly the uninsured and underinsured, providing them access to screenings for blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, foot exams, lung function, body composition, kidney function, prostate exam and consultations, dental exams, HIV testing and skin analysis.

Minister of Health Jeanne Atherden opened the event, applauding the temporary facility.

She said: “This is so good because we have all of these partners under one roof.

“This is an extension of the rising health issues. By working together they create that synergy and you get the wonderful result that you have here — people taking charge of their numbers.

“Men have a tendency to think they can grin and bear it and here’s an opportunity to get it all in one place. It’s not just for the uninsured and underinsured, it’s for everybody.”

The initiative was introduced by the charity five years ago. Executive director of BCHC, Tara Soares said: “We recognised that there was certainly a gap in providing men’s health services on the Island. What makes this truly a successful event is all of the agencies that come together. Not just the charitable agencies but the department of health, and we also have a number of physicians, general practitioners, family practitioners that will be here throughout the day and actually seeing men. We realise that in lots of cases they’re just not getting to see their GP and they’re not having that conversation on what their personal risk factors might be. What diseases they should screened for. We try to maximise what we can actually do assessments on here during the day.”

Visiting practitioner Michael O’Leary is a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Senior urological surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was present for consultations and examinations at the event and gave a free public presentation at the BUEI where men could talk about anything from prostate health to sexual health.

Dr O’Leary runs a men’s health clinic in Boston. He said: “There’s not a female in the room. They kick them all out.

“There’s something about a crowd that is more conducive to open discussions than one on one. Sometimes when I’m seeing a patient in consultation, one on one the guy’s a little nervous, but when there’s another group around they’re more likely to open up. It’s an interesting phenomenon.

Guys will be very upfront and say, hey, I’m 65 years old and I can’t perform the way I used to. Is that normal. What can I do about it?

The presentation I give is very layman directed. It’s not a lot of fancy jargon. It’s stuff that the average guy can understand about what he should be doing to be as healthy as he can be and to be as functional he can be as long as he wants.

Dr O’Leary told The Royal Gazette he hoped that the session would foster dialogue between attendees and their peers as well as provide valuable information.

He said: “A lot of men worry that when they have urinary symptoms that that’s a sign of prostate cancer. That’s rarely the case. Most prostate cancers are silent. The only way they find out they have them is because they get a PSA [prostate-specific antigen test] and they see their doc.

He added: “It’s particularly important for the population here because so many men have African heritage and the disease is more common in black men than it is in whites.

The charity also provided $150 vouchers for men to visit their GPs. Close to 20 per cent of the population has basic health insurance or no insurance.

Ms Soares said: “Oftentimes these are the people that will develop chronic diseases and they’re just not getting the care that they need and without the care, these chronic diseases become very severe.

She cited diabetes as an example and the danger of finding late stage cancers. She said: “Men who should have been diagnosed years ago, but because they couldn’t get access or couldn’t afford to get the screening. We’re trying to get in front of that, particularly with events like this today.

The Movember campaign funds the event. To date BCHC has raised $400,000 through the mustachioed movement.