Health
Health
The charity recently provided a local Clinic in the village which can be used for Midwife’s and also as a First Aid centre in the community.
Our pre5 antenatal clinic was officially opened on Tuesday 9th May 2017.
This facility will be a critical factor in health outcomes for pregnant mothers and their infant children.
The construction of a pre5 antenatal clinic will hopefully improve the health and well being of the villagers. The foundation provides medication for malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, scabies and red eye. This medication will be distributed from the clinic as required and stored in our recently installed solar powered fridge.
The clinic is open Monday to Friday and midwives visit every Wednesday.
Kelvin Galilea (pictured below) is the Health surveillance assistant who runs our antenatal / pre 5 Clinic. Before the clinic was built Kelvin treated patients under a tree. This excellent facility offers:
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Regular health checks to all under 5 children
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all inoculations for babies
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deworming twice a year of all children from birth to Standard 8 in the Primary School
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health checks of all pupils standard 1 -8 at Nora Docherty Primary School
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Free medication for common conditions mentioned previously
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Antenatal care for pregnant mums
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Family Planning
Our borehole provides clean water within the village for cooking and washing. (At the moment an engineering survey of the village is being undertaken with a view to consider options for enhancing the overall water supply as the two wells in the village are currently being overused and have been affected by poor rainfall over the last two rainy seasons). Prior to us digging the well and constructing the borehole, the village water supply was an open well.
We now also have 2 solar powered water tanks providing fresh water to taps at the nursery, the school and the clinic.
All children are encouraged to wash their hands after use of the latrines.
All Standard 1 children are issued with a large and fully treated mosquito net and malaria continues to be a killer disease.
Each year we distribute pants and sanitary pads to the girls. Hopefully this will prevent girls who are menstruating, losing 4-5 days of school each month.
Our friend Margaret, a nurse who manages the Fistula Hospital in the capital city of Lilongwe, comes regularly to the school to talk to the girls and mums on issues of health and menstruation. Two of our mums who were identified by Margaret in September 2015 of having a Fistula condition, had surgery and are back living happily in the village.
Unfortunately, this is a practice embedded in African Culture. Many of our girls are affected by this but we are however, making some progress in attitudes and in re-educating of the youngsters involved. Drought and pressures on family life can often be alleviated by early arranged marriages of daughters.
In partnership with Mary’s Meals, all children receive a nutritious daily meal in their place of learning. The mug of fortified porridge – likuni phala, a maize porridge, is often the only meal a child will receive in any given day.
In June 2019 we were delighted to hand over an ambulance to the community of Chiluzi. Up until then women walked to the maternity hospital to give birth. This took approximately 3.5 to 4 hours and often led to a birth by the roadside, sometimes leading to the death of the baby, mother or both. Th journey by ambulance will take 20 minutes. At the discretion of Kelvin and Humphrey the driver the ambulance can also be used for emergencies.