What Counts in Life

This week has been filled with many activities, thank goodness otherwise we'd waste our time here. The driving, many tasks (some I am unsure if we did correctly or not) and planning for the next day have begun to take their toll. This is not to say that I didn't learn from all the experiences, just that the energy may have been lacking slightly compared to what it usually is.

The mobile clinic was such a good experience for me. It forms such a necessary and important part of the community, it allows people to not have to have to spend unnecessary money on transport, to miss work the whole day to collect their medication. It allows for detection of problems or prevention of worsening of disease. The people and the sisters know each other, which makes it easier to report/confide with health problems.

The sisters need nutritional knowledge so they can relay the information to their patients with confidence. I think there should be shelves in the mobile clinic(there is space) to allow the sisters to have pamphlets or recipes available for their patients. It is unfair to the patients to only receive nutritional advise when there are students available, as their diet can change so much of what their disease is, it can improve their quality of life and probably increase their life span. It's especially essential to give care givers( not necessarily the mothers, as they are working most of the time, but this is not to say they don't need the information) of children the correct nutritional information so that these children, often FAS children, can grow and develop optimally so that they are able to function to the best of their ability. The fact that a lot of children are FAS shows us how important promotion is to mothers.

When discussing the type of patients in these areas an average of 2% have HIV(which's quite good, considering in general how many people are affected by HIV/AIDs), many people have TB and then the biggest problem is the non-communicable diseases. With TB our role is very important in managing the patients side effects from the medication, by doing this we will hopefully decrease the amount of individuals that stop using the medication because of the side effects. As mentioned above the high blood pressure, diabetes etcs are the biggest problem and also where our role is of the utmost importance as we can prevent these from worsening, we can make enable patients the ability to have control over their health thus decreasing their dependence on only medication. This would mean that we need to educate the care givers to give the correct complementary feeding so that childhood feeding doesn't their later life negatively ie Diabetes, cardio/obesity. We should provide the sisters with the correct nutrition knowledge so that when they have time to give advise they can. It would probably be a good idea to stop giving the children sweets after their visit, but I know that that is to make them excited to see the clinic and not scared to come because of the injections.

This was a lovely experience where I got to practice my Afrikaans quite a bit- winning. It's important that students take recipes(more then 10), handouts(a variety of these, as even if it is chronic day, one could still see care givers and therefore give information to them), smiles, Afrikaans and excitement. It would be a suggestion to possibly have a "Mobile clinic" file.

I enjoyed our second rehab visit as much as I enjoyed the 1st one, but with less nerves. The consultations we are able to perform with the patients are so valuable to us and to the patients. We both grow from them and learn from each other. We are also very privileged to be able to relay our consultations back to the staff that work there, this creates an interaction that we benefit from as well. The /value knowledge that we are able to provide staff and patients with can have a huge impact on their treatment. It can help influence their quality of life as well as form a stress/ behavior outlet(as my one patient is going to do when they leave rehab). I think that we are another ear to speak to is also beneficial for their "mind healing". To have motivation, interest and enthusiasm is essential in these consultations. To assess each patient and what path is necessary to take with them, what language you use(in terms of vocabulary), what information you can give, how much information you can give, as you can see there is so much to consider to ensure that that 1 consultation is something they will take with them after their 5 weeks, something that will help them grow into the person they were meant to be. With this being said I think that the feedback to the rehab (as an institute)is essential as well so that they are able to make changes in the menus, water "points" and possibly even including "nutrition" sessions in their 5 week stay.

The presentation we did with a group of 42 "students" started off rockily as we had projector issues. This meant that while we tried to fix it the students became quite restless which I think lead to the decrease in their attention span once we began. Our presentation included the effects of sugar, how to have a balanced lunch box and how to be mindful of what you eat. We could see that some students were very eager to learn and were quite involved in the presentation while others weren't too interested and I think they may have even taken a nap. However, I believe(strongly) that no matter how much information they walk away with(that they will actually remember), the seed is planted in their minds, the seed of healthy nutrition. Which will hopefully begin to grow when they see things we taught them in their day to day activities, eg seeing a coke and remembering " oh wait I shouldn't drink that because it has a lot of sugar in it and that is bad for my body". They don't have to remember why it was bad, but if they remember that it's bad that's good enough. I think it would have been beneficial to them if we had given them a handout, or if we could have made the slides more interactive(more questions or possibly a type of game).

This week has been about learning how to control my emotions professionally. Not because of the activities we did but what it involved in the time leading up to the activities.

"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead."

Nelson Mandela

Howzit Week 6