Community Health Workers Making an Impact
The Community Health Workers (CHW) have continuously been working hard to meet their goals of spreading wellness and aiding camp residents to overcome barriers that they may face in maintaining their health.
In the month of May, the team of 6 CHWs continued meeting with social worker, Hamza Daghash, across 5 different meetings to enhance their professionalism and proficiencies while visiting and caring for patients. They also experienced an increase in the number of patients from 10 to 20 between the 20th to 30th of May. The CHWs consistently pay home visits to the patients with various doctors to monitor the health of these patients.
In addition, they attended intensive training in first aid conducted by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society across a duration of 2 weeks.
In the month of June, the team held many meetings with the project director, Nahsat, to discuss the direction of the CHW project. They also continued to attend 4 meetings with the social worker, Hamza and collaborated with Dr Davin, a psychologist to further enhance their capabilities in dealing with patients.
Between the 6th and the 19th of June they met with the patients along with various doctors such as Dr Mohammed Abu Srour and Dr David. They monitored the cases to evaluate if the health of the patients had experienced any improvement or not.
They also visited the Palestinian Red Crescent Society to meet and further collaborate with the team there.
Between the 24th and 25th of June they had meetings with their donor, 1For3 and a group of doctors from the US to discuss how the project was going and the achievements made so far.
On the 26th of June the community Health Workers along with international doctors visited patients around the camps and gave them advice if needed be.
The following day, the health workers made a trip to Berzeit University where they spent two days with Rita Giacaman, a professor of public health at the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University in the West Bank. The Community Health Workers in Aida and the U.S team had a great workshop with Rita and her team on the history of the community health worker programs in Palestine, where the 1For3 team gave a workshop on the history of social medicine and community health work in the U.S, Latin America, and Haiti. Over 50 medical students from different universities in the West Bank joined us along with professionals from the field of health care.
The month of June primarily consisted with many meetings with different medical groups and collaborators to discuss what else was needed and how to expand the project further.
As for the month of July, on the 16th, the musicians, dabka dancers and community health workers visited the Elderly Center where they performed for them and did recreational activities together with the elderly. They also conducted some medical tests and checks for them before distributing flowers to them.
Between the 8th to the 26th the community health workers led the Children’s summer camps and educated them on basic hygiene, health awareness and common diseases.
They also continued to meet regularly with Hamza, the social worker and Dr Bram gave a lecture on Osteoporosis to the health workers. It was also monitored and observed that the patients overall experienced improvements in their health.
As of August, there is a total of 60 patients in the care of the CHW. The CHW are paired up and are responsible for over 20 patients in each pair. On the 8th, they conducted a workshop with a nutrition specialist and a specialist doctor to educate the patients on what sort of food and nutrition was ideal for them in their various health conditions.
On the 10th, they went with the international summer camp participants to different hospitals around Bethlehem – The Arab Association for Rehabilitation, Beit Jala Public Hospital, Caritas Baby Hospital as well as the elderly home, to introduce the internationals to the different health services in Bethlehem.
As for the month of September, the team have conducted a free eye clinic on the 3rd and 4th as well visited the children’s cancer ward and the pediatric ward in Beit Jala hospital on the 13 th of September.
They have also been attending many lectures and program conducted by Dr Henry as well as making house visits with him.
Any patients facing complications in their treatment are brought to the hospital upon detection by the CHWs.
The team hopes to continue to grow steadily under the guidance of their directors and coordinators as well as looks forward to the upcoming collaborations with other health professionals from Palestine and beyond.
