A team of doctors and nurses sought to raise awareness for the Golden Grove Health Centre through a medical outreach exercise held yesterday at the Diamond tarmac.
Patrick Ashford Roberts, a councillor attached to the Golden Grove/Diamond Neigh-bourhood Democratic Council (NDC), explained that the activity was the initiative of the NDC, the Golden Grove Health Centre and the Ministry of Health.
On call at the Diamond tarmac location were several medical professionals, including three doctors, dental assistants and nurses.
Roberts noted that the activity was conceptualised due to the fact that persons are unaware that the local health centres are capable of providing the medical services that some people would travel to the capital to access.
“The reason why we decided to embark on a programme like this, is that we found that a lot of people do not use the health centre facilities for reasons unknown to us. We thought it was wise to come out in the fields to conduct this exercise to raise awareness for the services offered by the health centre,” Roberts related.
Dr Singh, who is currently attached to the Grove Health Centre, listed several services the facility is equipped to deal with, including dressing wounds, management of diabetes, high blood pressure and common colds and flu.
Dr Singh further urged residents to utilise the services provided by healthcare providers in their community.
She said that during the outreach patients were also advised which health centres are up and running and which would be convenient for which patient.
The doctor went on to mention that five patients who were part of the medical outreach were diagnosed as suffering from high blood pressure and she said this was just an example of how beneficial health centres can be.
Both Roberts and Dr Singh expressed their gratitude to the Ministry of Health for its efforts in making the outreach possible.
Roberts added that he expects outreaches to be ongoing through different communities in the future and he also hopes to pull off a blood drive.
When Stabroek News visited the tents at the Diamond tarmac, a handful of persons were waiting their turn to see the doctor. However, a nurse on duty informed that over 77 persons had visited to do checks ups at the tents.
Services at offered at the outreach included testing for high blood pressure, diabetes, dental work and administering of vaccines, such as tetanus and yellow fever for adults. Babies due for vaccines were directed to the most convenient health centre in their area.
