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Eccles residents benefit from medical outreach
Residents from the Eccles, East Bank Demerara (EBD) community were yesterday afforded the opportunity to sit and explain their health issues with members of a small medical outreach team from the Agricola Health Centre.
Oswald Quamina
The team comprised a doctor, two nurses, one pharmacist and a medex.
The outreach was organized by workers from the Eccles/ Ramsburg Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) in collaboration with the Health Centre.
According to Oswald Quamina, a councilor from the NDC, the outreach was organized in an effort to ease the “strain” of residents, primarily the elderly, having to go to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) or the Diamond Diagnostic Centre just for a checkup.
“Sometimes persons would go to the GPHC and if they are not lucky, they would not get looked after the same day, and then there is transportation cost too,” Quamina said.
With that in mind, he added that representatives from the NDC decided to have a medical outreach programme for the Eccles residents once every six months.
According to the Councilor, the Ministry of Health assists in providing the medical personnel and drugs while the NDC raised money to foot the transportation bill to take elderly residents to and from their homes.
Quamina explained that the money the NDC has to arrange is not more than fifty thousand dollars which also includes meals and transportation for the medical personnel.
“At the end of the day, our expectation is to satisfy those persons within the community that are ill or need to see the doctor.’
If a person needs further medical intervention, he or she will be transferred to the main referral hospital which is the GPHC.
Asked how the residents were informed of the outreach, Quamina stressed that the workers from the NDC went to each and every household in the community and gave them a slip.
This publication was informed that residents were tested for High Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, and High Blood Sugar among other illnesses. They were also given medication.
At the next outreach which will be held in six months, Quamina said that the NDC is expecting to have two doctors along with a dentist since the turnout from the public is massive.
A nurse interacts with a resident yesterday at the Eccles/ Ramsburg NDC.
A resident, Tom Henry said that it is a good initiative to have health care workers visit the NDC twice a year.
“Some people don’t like to go to the hospital often, even me. If I get a little headache or so I just take a pain killer and that is it because I ain’t able go till to the hospital to get a checkup and have to wait for hours, so this here is really good. You come and less than 10 minutes you are seen by a doctor,” Henry said.
Last year more than 100 residents were seen by medical personnel and given medication at the NDC.
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