A sexual health clinic is to be opened on the University campus as part of an outreach programme on sexual education for young adults, Dr Chamaine Gauci, Director of Health Promotion, told the Parliamentary Social Affairs Committee this evening.
Speaking during a briefing to the committee on the work being carried out sexual health, Dr Gauci said sexual health was all too frequently associated with youths, contraception and STDs when this was, in fact only a small aspect of the scenario.
Sexual health encompassed all genders, all ages and all abilities.
Dr Gauci said since last September, a drive has been carried out by the department of health to increase capacity to enable the GU services to be diffused to the community.
She said that there was still a stigma attached to accessing the services of the GU clinic. Therefore, sexual education and treatment outreach was imperative.
Guidelines for educators on personal and social education in all schools have been created to enable the teachers to approach the issues in appropriate ways.
She said that help for the parents was being prepared. Church schools were somewhat reluctant to allow this type of information but graduallyco-operation was increasing. A process to increase sexual awareness in children with learning and intellectual disabilities was being developed so that both the disabled and their parents can be assisted in appropriate acquisition of knowledge.
Through the use of the traditional, mainstream and social media, the department was seeking to spread knowledge and awareness of the different types of sexual health issues and has integrated its operations into Mater Dei Hospital to further remove any stigmatisation of the use of the services.
Dr Gauci said that the response on the social media had been encouraging and has opened the way for research and sampling.
Citing research carried out among 1,173 adults between 16-40 years, the vast majority obtained information on sexuality at school with the home faring very poorly on dissemination of information on sexual health. Families seem to be at a loss on how to tackle this subject and education has to be targeted to this sector.
Dr Gauci said that the vaccine against cervical cancer to pre-adolescent girls had been largely successful. However a small percentage had not completed the whole cycle of vaccinations and the greatest concern is that those who shy away from treatment are the ones who need it most.