Trying to help The Kids ;)

So we just had Child Health Week. That's when every 5 months or so the rural health clinics are charged with reaching children in the area for measles vaccinations, distributing de-worming meds, giving out vitamin a, and redipping mosquitoes nets with insecticide. It's a very cool program and it reaches alot of kids.

At my health center we do outreach called under 5 to each village in the area at least once a month where we give health education, vaccines, and weigh and chart growth of kids. It gets pretty good attendance but child health week gets better. So you're thinking good stuff, right?

Well, ya we reached quite a few kids but let me tell you a bit about how the days went. . . I gave a little health education on why vitamin a is important, how to prevent worms using clean water practices, how people sometimes get side effects from vaccines but it is still very important to get them, and about the importance of insecticide treated nets in reducing malaria cases. I also mentioned how the process would go for the day so people knew what their kids were getting, when, and why so there's no mystery to how they are helping their kids be healthy today. My Envirnmental Health Technician at my clinic translated, he is awesome. Then we had comunity health workers weigh and chart the kids, the nurse give the measles vaccine, a neighborhood health committee member giving vitamin a, the EHT recording ages of every child and what they get, and me giving the de-worming meds.

So sounds like a smooth process, right? ;) Well it was, except I didn't mention the about 4 hours of crying and very loud screaming from the kids ;) Oh, I know I didn't go into medicine for a reason ;) We are helping these kids, right? But they see a pill and flip out! They don't even need to glance at the needle for the vaccine, just the deworming pill that they just need to chew is enough to start the chorus of screaming accompanied with alot of kids spitting out the pills and enticing others to do the same ;) Oh the fun! I know we did good and needed things, but wow! I prefer the health education and I'll leave the dispensing work to my colleagues. One kid even ran away! I mean bolted from the area after seeing what was happening to the other kids and the mom had to take off in chase after him, hilarous and so sad at the same time. Oh, pedriatrcians are very strong ;)