International Men’s Day 2023 is on the horizon. In case you’re unaware, it falls on 19 November, the same day we observe World Toilet Day – which, despite its name, is a completely serious day that seeks to bring attention to global sanitation.
Nevertheless, the clash of dates and relative silence in regard to International Men’s Day — a day dedicated to bringing awareness to issues like men’s mental health, suicide, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and other factors affecting male sexual health — points to a general apathy over troubles specific to men.
This lack of interest in men’s issues, says founder for the Society of Men’s Health Singapore (SMHS) Dr Peter Lim, hasn’t changed much in the decades since he incepted the society in 1999.
While the 73-year-old admits that inroads have been made into certain issues like male mental health, there remains much work to be done – particularly in concerns of men’s ageing.
Shining the spotlight on men’s health issues
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Men, after all, “have traditionally been the breadwinners. They feed families, they feed companies, and they feed the world. Women nowadays have risen up in the workforce, and rightly so, but for many men that are currently ageing or in less developed nations, this is still the case,” says the senior consultant for urology and male subfertility at StarMed Specialist Centre in Farrer Park.
To that end, when he began the SMHS – which is now managed by his successor Dr Ronny Tan – he hoped to champion the medical specialty of andrology, the male equivalent of gynaecology.
In other words, a speciality catering specifically to male reproductive systems and issues, which he hoped to further with a centre in a local university that would create a new breed of doctors specialising in the field of men’s health.
Undeterred, he formed the Institute for Men’s Health in 2013 to organise regional medical congresses on the issue of men’s health, followed by a professional training institute and certification course under the auspices of SMSH to arm local doctors with specialist andragogical knowledge.
A partnership with one of the medical schools related to Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur is also in the works, he says.
Learning lessons from women
A great deal of the health issues that men face like erectile dysfunction, male hypogonadism (low testosterone) or incontinence are seen as emasculating for men, leading to knock-on effects in terms of male mental health, says Dr Lim.
This in turn leads some men to enter a depressive spiral, where they “give up their jobs, become a burden to society, and as a result, feel even worse about themselves”.
The difficulties are compounded when thoughts about suicide creep in.
Keeping men healthy by keeping them productive
Aside from issues of one’s physical health, Dr Lim advocates for “keeping men productive as long as possible”.
"This is necessary for the country from a survival point of view. We’re an ageing population. The old-timers playing chess in the void deck – do you know how much experience and wisdom you have around that table?"
