Madina Community, Kakata City, Margibi County, Liberia – Group 1 (February 2020 Report)
Community Health Care Worker activities done within our eleven communities from February 3-28, 2020 were the following:
- Education on Coronavirus.
- Education on Lassa Fever.
- Encouragement on personal hygiene.
- Encouragement on the prenatal vitamins.
- Distributions of materials to the elderly and needy.
- Education of the Community Health Care Workers on Communicable diseases and Infection, Prevention and Control (Personal Protective Equipment).
- Educating our people on various diseases of importance.
Education on the Coronavirus
While in the community discussing with our community dwellers, we were able to educate them on:
- How can someone get the coronavirus?
- What can they do to prevent themselves from getting the corona virus?
- What can a person see and notice that this is a symptom of corona virus?
- They were told that this is a common virus that causes infection, especially respiratory infection.
- It is a virus that is very contagious that someone can easily come in contact with.
- Our people were also told that someone could get the coronavirus by not practicing proper hand hygiene.
- They could get the coronavirus by not educating their children or family members on the proper way of always protecting themselves when they cough or sneeze, because it is a disease that someone could get while sitting beside a person that is affected with the coronavirus.
- Our people was also educated on symptoms that they could notice on a person and suspect that this person is a victim who’s carrying the disease called the coronavirus.
- These symptoms are:
- Common cold
- Fever
- Cough
- Shortness of breath
- Sore throat
- These symptoms are:
- To prevent ourselves from this corona virus:
- Wash your hands constantly because washing hands prevents us from many diseases.
- Shown how to cover the mouth whenever they are coughing, and always use their elbow while sneezing.
- This will help everyone from spreading the coronavirus to our family, friends and the nation.
Education on Lassa Fever was all about taking care of food and surroundings.
Taking care of their surrounding have to do with keeping in and out of their homes clean. Make sure that everything used while preparing food should be clean and well taken care of.
Educated them on the food – put food in a bowl that has a perfect covering that holds the bowl very well, and it should be a bowl that has no holes.
They were also told to keep their food in a secure area like on a high table or in a place that is best for safe keeping. Our community dwellers were also reminded of putting their drinking water in a clean bucket with tap or a clean gallon to prevent rats and other insects from coming in contact with their food and water.
Educating Pregnant Women:
All of our pregnant women were encouraged to always take their prenatal vitamins because they help to cover what is lacking in their diet. They were also told that the prenatal vitamins are very important to them because they have lot of vitamins:
- Folic Acid = helps to prevent neural tube birth defects of the brain, spine or spinal cord problems.
- Iron = helps to build good blood cells that carry oxygen and help both the baby and the mother.
- Calcium = is very important for pregnant woman, because it helps loss of bone density and it helps the baby bone to grow and maintains good teeth.
- Vitamin-D = helps calcium to be absorbed into the bone.
- Iodine = is critical for a woman’s healthy thyroid function during pregnancy.
- They were told that taking these prenatal vitamins helps pregnant women to give birth to a healthy baby.
- We also told them to always eat before taking their prenatal vitamins.
Distribution of materials to the elderly and needy:
So many items were distributed to our people within our communities such as: crouches, canes, walkers, under pads, pampers and chamus. Those items were given to the disabled and people who could not move by themselves.
All of them were very happy they received those items with joy and gave thanks to Doctor Hena and the Waterfield Primary Healthcare Center for remembering them. According to them, they said that they are always asking God to continue opening doors at Waterfield Primary Healthcare Center and especially for Dr. Hena who has always been there for them.
Education of Community Health Workers on Communicable Diseases and Infection and Prevention and Control (Personal Protective Equipment)
Many thanks to Doctor Hena for taking her time to impart some knowledge on to us. Her teaching had been helpful to us, because we have learned so many things during our classes:
- We learned about microorganism and the different types of microbes and their functions.
Now we know that our life is circulating around microbes, but we also know that there are good and bad microbes for which we referred to the good ones as normal flora and the bad ones as pathogens.
- We now know that these microbes are helpful to us in one area and harmful to us in another area, which is called having an opportunistic infection.
- We also know some sicknesses that are caused by those various types of microbes.
- We know that sore throat, urinary tract infections and Syphilis are all cause by bacteria.
- We know that Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, Common cold are all caused by viruses.
- We also know that fungi cause athlete’s foot, skin and oral yeast infections.
- We know that parasites cause so many sicknesses like scabies, ringworm, and malaria.
So with this knowledge, we can identify so many sicknesses within our various communities and the causes of those sicknesses.
Cases Noticed:
- AM, a 19-year-old girl went for operation on the 12th day of January 2020 at the C.H. Rennie Hospital with the condition of appendicitis . Looking at her health status, she’s getting better.
- AK has been suffering from rashes for some months, according to her, she had not been taken to any clinic or hospital for a checkup. According to the community dwellers, they told us that Alberta’s mother went to sell, so they promised that they were going to encourage Alberta’s mother to bring her to the clinic for treatment.
- NK, one of our pregnant women accepted our prenatal vitamins and was faithful in taking them after educating her on the importance of the prenatal vitamin. According to her, one morning she got up from bed and noticed the pool of blood draining down from her private part. This lasted for many hours she said. She did not experience pain before the accident but she took Paracetamol and Multivitamin tablets that were given to her at C. H. Rennie Hospital. We encouraged Naomi to go back to the hospital where she had been taking treatment.
- FL is one of our clients from Kpelleh Community. Mr. L got sick two years ago and he was taken to the C.H. Rennie Hospital for treatment. This man spend one week at the C.H. Rennie Hospital, immediately after the one week, he was discharged. Discharging this man to home caused him another problem, because he was not treated properly. Mr. L had not been able to walk on his two legs properly since he was discharged from the hospital; however, he was encouraged to continue taking exercise, gradually the constant exercise may help him.
- Mr. SH had suffered from hypertension for years. He was taken to our clinic for treatment and was advised on taking his medication regularly and food to avoid eating. He was also given a wheel chair that could help him in the process, but looking at his condition and his age, he could not take instructions from anybody. He did everything according to the way he wanted to do them. So as it stands now, he is now urinating and passing stool on himself; therefore, our clinic decided to help him. He was given under pads, nose masks to help his family take good care of him.
- MK, is one of our pregnant women who has had five children, but all five of them did not survived. Miatta was told by some nurses that she had a problem called hot water problem. Miatta is now carrying her sixth pregnancy and she is experiencing pain under her stomach; therefore, she was encouraged to continue taking the prenatal vitamins regularly and to go for proper checkup.
- One of our pregnant women refused the prenatal vitamins after they were given to her for the first time. Immediately when she saw us, she got afraid and started to run away. Being in motion, caused her to waste her mother’s sup that was sitting on the fire. She was asked about the reasons for refusing the medications. She said that the prenatal vitamins make her feel bad, tired and get hungry faster. For those reasons, she cannot continue with our prenatal vitamins. So we tried encouraging her on the importance of the prenatal vitamins, but she could not listen to us because, she was very angry.
Group 1: The chart below shows the total number of persons who took part in our activities.
| Male | Female | Pregnant women | Babies mother | Children | Grand Total |
| 42 | 107 | 36 | 31 | 214 | 430 |
We saw 36 pregnant women and we served 25 pregnant women with our prenatal vitamins. There were eight pregnant women who were already in their nine months and three refused our prenatal vitamins. Twelve of our pregnant women have given birth.
This chart below show the total numbers of people whose Blood Pressures were taken within our communities:
| Male | Female | Grand Total |
| 22 | 148 | 170 |
While monitoring our people’s blood pressure we came across some of our clients with high blood pressure and we also observed two person with low blood pressure. Those people who had high blood pressure were told:
- To always go to the clinic or hospital for checkup, and take more excesses and have time to rest.
- To take their medications every day and avoid putting vita in their food.
- Those people that had low blood pressure were advised to: Add little salt to their food and drink a cup of coffee in the morning and in the evening.
- They were also encouraged to come to the facility for proper treatment.
- We also encouraged them to eat a healthy diet.
Assessing Blood Pressures 
Assessing Woman Hand 
Distributing Worm Pills
