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SCHOOL BASED CLINIC CONCEPT
The Adakum Educational Foundation with grants from JPMorgan Chase, and volunteers of young professional from the US is started construction of a Health Center at the L&A Academy in Accra in September of 2008. When it is completed and opened in March of 2009, the Center will serve multiple purposes:
Have offices for general check up, dental and eye care, and a lab;
Provide facilities for volunteers medical professionals from all over the world to come and help the poor families;
Serve as information and training center for public health issues: Malaria campaign, environmental clean up, HIV/AIDS, STDs, Healthy Habits for School Children campaign.
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Volunteers From the US at Work building the Health Center & L&A |
The Health Center under Construction on the top floor of the L&A Admin Building |
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Very few children in Ghana, and indeed, all over Africa, have regular access to doctors and clinics for check –ups and medical treatments. The tragic result is that, treatable childhood diseases often turn into debilitating and deadly illnesses over time, crippling bodies and minds and turning bright young men and women into unproductive citizens. In the cases of adults, we do know that because of lack of means, illnesses go untreated or partially treated resulting in unnecessary early deaths which usually spell doom for the future of the young children. |
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To help solve this tragic condition, the Adakum Foundation is advocating for opening School Clinics in the school compound/complex to provide FREE basic preventive health care for the children and their parents. We believe this will be an inexpensive and effective means of treating and fighting common diseases among the children and the general population. The Adakum Foundation is testing and funding such School Clinic at the L&A Memorial Academy in Accra, Ghana.
This past June 2007, with the help of 4 volunteer medical students from Rutgers University who went to Ghana to visit the school in Accra, we started the Clinic operation. |
THE CLINIC FUNCTION:
- The School Clinic will have a full time nurse and an assistant nurse who will come in 5 days a week –Monday through Friday.
- The Clinic will affiliate with a local Doctor who will serve as the part-time school doctor and will come to the school once a week to check up on the children and their parents. In an emergency, the Doctor will be called in or cases will be sent to his office/hospital/clinic for immediate attention.
- The nursing staff will consult with the Doctor and administer over the counter medicines and any prescription drugs to the sick.
- As parents drop off their children in the mornings or pick them up in the afternoons, the nursing staff will perform basic blood sugar tests and High Blood Pressure readings on the parents and advice them of the results.
- Where medication is available, the parents will also be given medicines to treat/control their aliments.
- The Clinic will serve as the center in the fight against the Malaria epidemic in the community by administering preventive malaria medicines and treating those who have contacted the illness.
- The Clinic will seek donations of treated mosquito nets to distribute and install in the homes of the people in the community, starting with the families of the school children
- The Doctor and the nursing staff will educate the children and parents on the dangers of cigarettes, drugs and excessive alcohol drinking.
- The Doctor and the nursing staff will educate the children and parents on the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
- The Doctor and the nursing staff will be the authoritative figures to organize community to undertake monthly general environmental clean ups to eliminate the breeding grounds of the malaria borne mosquitoes.
- The nursing staff will join the school faculty and deliver daily lectures on basic hygiene and healthy life choices.
- Among the aliments that the Clinics would expect to handle are: Various Childhood diseases; Chest, Lungs and Eye diseases; Malaria and Typhoid; High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Dental, Hernia; Dysentery, Diarrhea, Malnutrition, Skin diseases, Measles, Kwashiorkor, Headaches, Bodily Pains, Constipation, Coughs, Sores, Toothache.
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HOW THE CLINIC WILL WORK:
- The Adakum Foundation will seek funding to pay the salaries and benefits for the nursing staff and some stipend to the volunteer school Doctor.
- The Foundation will seek donations of medicines, equipment, and supplies from all over the world and ship to the Clinics. As well, the Foundation will seek donations from Ghanaians and institutions in Ghana.
- The Foundation will seek support, assistance and affiliation for the School Clinics with Medical Centers, Medical Groups, Medical Schools and Universities in the US.
- The Foundation will seek support, assistance and affiliation for the School Clinics with UNICERF, WHO and other world health and social organizations.
- The Foundation will seek volunteer medical professionals to go to Ghana to work and assist at the School Clinics. We believe such experience would be beneficial and rewarding to those medical professionals.
- The Foundation will seek opportunities for the school doctors and the nursing staff to further their education and training at medical and academic institutions in the US.
- The School Clinics at various locations in the country will work closely with each other and with the Ministries of Health and Education to report and track any unusual or communicable diseases.
FIRST CLINIC:
The first School Clinic was started in June 2007 at the L&A Memorial Academy, in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The school is located in the Ga-West District of Accra in a community called Mallam-Gbawe which has approximately 250,000-300,000 children of school going age. It was started in 1998 with 3 nursery children and has now grown into a student population is three hundred and twenty five (325) as of January 2007, (Nursery - 2 year olds- to the 8th grade-14 year olds). It is expected to grow to, and hold steady at about 400 by the end of 2008. Majority of the parents of the students constitute low-income earners of the state, caretakers, petty traders, laborers and subsistent farmers.
The Prevailing Health And Safety Of The Community
The Mallam-Gbawe community in the Ga-West District where L&A Memorial Academy is located is on a high land over looking Accra central, the capital. The land is rocky, dusty, and aggravated by the absence of proper drains and bitumen on the roads. Sanitation is poor and garbage is indiscriminately disposed everywhere and anywhere. The drains, if any, are uncovered, wild grasses and swampy sites (mosquito breeding areas) surround the areas where people live. Foodstuffs and food are prepared and sold by the silted drains. Sand and stone winning is a major occupation of the community members and so therefore, problems of the Chest, Lungs and Eye diseases are very common along with Malaria and Typhoid. There is one Public Health Centre in the community which serves as “weighing center” for small children and expectant mothers.
What The Clinic Currently Has
- The L&A School Clinic currently has very few equipments and medicines. Efforts are being made in the US to find donated equipment, supplies and medicines to ship to them.
- The Clinic has a volunteer local Doctor, Dr Samuel Nyarko, who visits the school once a week to check on the children. He is the Head of Public Health at the Ghana Police Hospital in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
- The School Clinic currently can only afford the services of a part-time nurse who comes in once a week. Efforts are being made to raise funds or find a sponsor for the $6,000 a year salary for the nurse and the assistant nurse. It is hoped that they will have a nursing staff in place at the beginning of the next academic year in September, 2007
- 4 volunteer medical students from the Rutgers University Medical School who went to visit the school in Accra this June 2007, started compiling case histories of each student. At the time of their departure, about 20 profiles had been completed.
- A list of needed medical supplies, equipment and medicines has been compiled and is available upon request.
DONATION AND SUPPORT
The Adakum Foundation will be grateful for your donations to operate these clinics. You can donate cash, equipment, supplies, and medicines. You can also donate your services to work at the clinic. Your tax deductible donation will save a life and build a better future for a child. Please help us! |
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