Over the years, men have always believed that access to primary health care including quality sexual reproductive health services is a feminine trait.
Rarely will you find men accessing healthcare services if their health condition is pristine.
Certainly, men socialization has always paved them a leeway to seek help and reproductive health services and information when they are at their worst and deteriorated situation.
The toxic masculinity makes some circumstances irreversible while there was a time to make things right.
For instance, how many men access Post Exposure Prophylaxis when they experience a condom burst? The number of men who report gender-based violence cases or, seek post-rape and sodomy reproductive health services is low.
This aside, men feel shy to buy condoms at Pharmacies and or access them from public washrooms a behavior exposing them to the vulnerability of contracting and spreading Sexually transmitted infections.
A majority of men are not serious when it comes to maintaining their health. Perhaps men would rather listen and watch politics and sports all day long but disregard reproductive health talks which can educate them more about how to practice self-care.
World Health Organization defines self-care as the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider. Men are not an exception from all these practices underlined by self-care.
Men should explore the available sexual reproductive health self-care options in store for them. Currently, there are HIV self-testing kits, PEP, PREP, and male condoms available for men to uptake.
Accessing sexual reproductive health services by exploring the available self-care options will promote a good culture of health-seeking behavior for men thus translating to quality health and wellbeing for men.
Finally, just like brushing teeth in the morning, men should equally know the SRH self-care options for them and commit to accessing them unrelenting.
Mr. John Mbugua is the team leader of Angaza Initiative and also a youth committee member at RHNK
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