Comprehensive Medical Checkups are every end of month, since November. I wish to place major emphasis on the most recent, held on 30th January 2012, where we had a visiting doctor, a medical assistant, a midwife, dentist, optical assistant, 2 nursing assistants, 2 counselors and 2 volunteers. The most common diagnoses identified by the medical personnel were: malaria, STIs, Worms and bacterial infections, chronic diseases, and other minor ailments. 10 HIV positive cases were also tested, counseled and encouraged to start on ARV Septrin treatment, which we pledged to provide. For dental care, tooth extraction was carried out, as more preferred remedies like re-filling are quite costly and cannot be afforded right now. The midwife and counselors advised the community members on family planning methods, proper nutrition especially for pregnant mothers and children. An eye checkup was conducted and some patients were found to be in need of eyeglasses, while others with diseases like trachoma were treated and those with minor infections were given eye drops.
Challenges and recommendations from Medical Staff
The turn up for the last checkup superseded the projected numbers due to the news spreading fast about the services. There is only one doctor in the district who is also the medical superintendent and as such he is overwhelmed with duties and cannot attend to all the patients. As such many people have not been able to access proper services and so we had people coming in from different parts of the district, which led to an overwhelming number. There is also lack of some medical equipment like the examination couch (portable one), dissecting forceps (2), BP machine (2), Kidney dishes (4), featalscope (2), wick stove, boiler, artery forceps, small torch, optic torches etc. Finally, there is need for more medical personnel to be brought on board to curb the problem of numbers. The last checkup dealt with over 1000 patients from 6am to 8pm, and the exercise had to be halted due to the darkness, even though people were still coming.