500 villagers get free medical services

ABOUT 500 villagers in Magunje last week received free medical services through the benevolence of the United Methodist Church health outreach programme.

The programme was coordinated by the church’s Harare West District.

The district’s health co-ordinator, Mrs Perpetual Kaseke, who was also part of the medical team, said Harare West had extended from the capital city to Mount Darwin.

The district now covers areas between Harare and Kariba, extending further to Kitwe in Zambia.

She said the programme was solely funded from within the church, with doctors, nurses and other professionals engaged in the outreach initiative being also members of the church.

“We have a health committee in our church, which looks at how the church can assist the community health-wise.

“In our church, we have doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and radiographers among others and these offer their time and resources to assist during such events.”

She said the church also sources drugs and equipment through associated professionals.

“For instance, we give the lists of drugs required to pharmacists, who will procure the drugs for us.

“All the people involved in this exercise are practising professionals who are either in public or private practice.

“It is an exercise with all the blessings of the Ministry of Health and Child Care since we work according to the ministry’s set standards.”

Mrs Kaseke said the local Magunje Hospital also referred patients to be screened and get some drugs that are not in stock.

She said the majority of the people who were treated were the elderly, 50 of whom had dangerous blood sugar levels.

Some villagers were issued with spectacles, while others were treated for various ailments including diabetes.

Dr Advance Chingwena, who headed the oral and dental care section during the event, said there was need to fuse more oral and dental care education into schools since there was a lot of dental neglect among both young and old people.

“Most people spend long periods of time without accessing treatment, hence the need for tooth extraction.

“We have done 78 tooth extractions and six fillings,” he said.

He said the dentists had also extracted more than two teeth per individual.

“The problems in oral and dental care access seems to cut across all ages. There is definite need to bring in more oral and dental education programmes into schools.”