Post de Sante

July 14, 2016

Today we went to one of the “Post de Sante,” which is a mixture of a mobile clinic and an information site for members of the community. These clinics take the form of a pop-up sites that are located every-single day of the week throughout the community because the health centers are not easily accessible by everything. These mobile clinics are ran by nurses who are at the top of their field. Members of the community can receive their vaccines and their emergency needs are well met.

I showed up a site in near-by Deschapelles and went to work. I did not know whether to wear my scrubs or not, but I showed up with them anyways. While the mobile clinic was being ran by the nurse, I quickly joined two community health care workers who were in charge of passing out vitamins, food supplements, providing vaccines, and guarding the nutrition of children in the community. Needless to say: Multi-tasking was the name of the game. Each mother sat patiently cradling their child regardless of their age. The make-shit waiting room beamed with chatter, laughter, and tad-bit of crying. Placed underneath a decent amount of shade, additional benches were added because today was a busy day. Mothers handed their child’s nutrition card—some tattered and some new. These mothers knew that it was their job to protect their child regardless of how much or how little that they had. I gazed at the waiting room and saw some skinny children and some chubby-well-fed-children. Regardless of the spectrum at which they fell, their mothers were here to guard the nutrition of their child. These women and the extent to which they were concerned about their children inspired me.

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When enough children came, you can feel task at hand become the focal point: weighing them. These mothers were no stranger to the process: take my child’s clothes off, place their little legs in the weighing sack, and put them in line to weighed. I let the community health care worker do the first couple of patients, learned the lay of the land, and quickly began to weigh these children! Calling each name, and the child to be next in line, order was created from such chaos. The lesson spent in French understanding how to say numbers accurately came into play immensely. I said the number and wrote it down in their nutrition chart— a chart that mothers can visually understand the progression or digression of their child’s health. I believe in that time only, I weighed about 30 babies. And that was just the FIRST wave!

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The first wave got their education on the importance of nutrition. They were lectured by Community Health Care worker Figueroa (who has been a staple in the community for over 35 years). After a day of work he explained to me that he has been doing this work and he is no stranger to his community. He loves his work because of the love that his community has for him. Regardless of this love, he showed those mothers tough love for sake of his nutrition lecture. I would like to think that what he was saying resonated with the women. I would like to think that between their children distracting them, something was said that made them reflect. Sad to say, but only the first wave received their nutrition lecture because the second wave always comes late to avoid it.

Sure enough, those latecomers started strolling on in. They even started strolling in during the nutrition lecture turning in their child’s nutrition chart. Crazy right? So distracting. Imagine coming in the class late and turning in your homework while your professor was on the board teaching?

Regardless, even more children came during this second wave and I would like to count them at around 40. After being weighed, the circumference of the their arms was measured against the length of the arm and analyzed by looking at the strip’s notation of red, yellow, or green. After which, vitamins were passed and supplements were given to the malnourished children.

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Towards the end of the day,  we waited to see if more mothers would come and I was able to witness a Post-Natal Home Survey that was done at the “Post-Sante.” This is technically not against the rules, but it had to be done. After a month of inputting the responses from the survey, it was a wonderful experience to see one done. Mothers are asked these intimate questions and their child is inspected. How convenient it is to have access to the mobile clinic after completing a survey ? Very. I hope that mother got all the help she needed. And I hope that the work I did made a difference in these children’s lives.

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