Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Solidarity Consultation on the island of Sal, located in the Community Center of Chã de Matias, in Espargos, carried out more than a thousand consultations in the last three months. The office opened in April this year and offers free consultations to children aged 0 to 13 across the island.
According to Dr. Manuela Santos Lima, the office’s pediatrician, the exact number is 1020 consultations and the office has 800 enrolled children.
“We’ve already done a lot of work, you can already see the changes, the results of this initiative. We have accompanied many children with wounds, for example, we do bandages. We’ve already done many screenings for vision problems, including some of these children already have their glasses, we’ve been monitoring children with skin problems, obesity, low weight and all of them are improving “reports the doctor.
Manuela Lima also states that working with primary health care means monitoring children and seeing their evolution, and the office has been able to do just that.
“We have been trying to follow up, we are always in contact with the parents, they bring the child to the clinic for follow-up and that way we can see the evolution, if it has improved or not, if the treatment was adequate” guarantees the same source.
Skin problems, dental problems and vision problems make up the majority of cases seen
The pediatrician says that, in these three months of operation of the office, the health problems that have received the most are those of the skin, followed by dental problems such as caries and vision problems.
The pediatrician at Consultório Solidário is guided by Spanish pediatricians from the África Avanza project, with whom she has weekly meetings, to address issues such as rarer diseases and the best treatment approach, a method that Dr. Manuela says it has been very beneficial.
The island of Sal still needs to improve in terms of health
“We still need a lot of work in terms of health on the island of Sal, the population of the island is growing rapidly, with the majority young and of reproductive age, so we have more and more children. The more we are able to respond to these types of questions, the better it will be and, in this way, we can reduce the waiting list. As the office is an Africa Avanza project, we also have specialist consultations such as otorhinolaryngology, pediatric surgery, dermatology, which normally come once a year, and we are able to refer them to specialists”, says the doctor.
Lectures for promotion and prevention
The office will soon start a set of lectures focused on health promotion and prevention, and the three topics that will be addressed are dental hygiene, healthy eating and sex education.
The idea, according to the doctor, is to go out into the field and take these lectures to associations and kindergartens, for example.
The initiative was promoted by the RIU Hotels & Resorts chain, in collaboration with África Avanza and the local Des-Bem Foundation and which has the support of the Cape Verde Ministry of Health, and came to fill a major need on the island, which is the lack of of pediatric doctors.
According to the doctor, the office will serve around 10,000 children from all over the island.
In addition to the urgency of each case, priority will be given to medical care for the most needy families, groups 1 and 2 of the social register.
The project also promotes professional qualification activities in pediatric care and awareness activities.
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