DeckerMed Outreach Camps Meru County September 4 and 5, 2023
DeckerMed Africa Trust continued with its Outreach Camps on September 4th and 5th with camps at Nthakira and Ngonyi in Meru County. Working with the Ministry of Health in each instance, DeckerMed deployed clinical teams to assess, treat and refer patients with surgical, women’s and ophthalmic diseases.
“We treat patients gratis or refer them to our partners who do likewise. Only 5% of patients can afford the 500 shillings (US$4.00) monthly premium for National Health Insurance Fund,” said DeckerMed Camps Coordinator Angela Ndegwa.
Episodic and Neglected Diseases
DeckerMed focuses on episodic vs chronic disease; thus, we treat or refer otitis, PID and allergic ophthalmitis, but not arthritis, diabetes or hypertension. We also assess and refer Neglected Diseases as identified by the WHO: cataracts (53% of blindness cases in Kenya), clubfoot, obstetric fistula, hernia, unrepaired trauma, cleft palate, and more.
Venues
We held our camps at Nthakira Chief’s Camp on 4th September and Ngonyi Chief’s Camp on 5th September. The support from the good people of Meru County is truly invaluable to our operations.
Clinical Teams
Our core teams include a surgical resident, a nurse, a sonographer, a clinical officer and an optometrist. We are fortunate that the Meru Level 5 and Embu Level 5 Teaching and Referral Hospitals support our initiatives by lending us students and staff.
Screening and the Electronic Medical Record
Our clinical nurse assessed patients using state-of-the-art digital equipment for temperature, blood pressure and blood glucose levels. Vitals were entered into our EMR and populated with age, sex, ID, phone/pin, and digital photo. Each clinician and the sonographer is connected to the EMR by Mifi so every note, comment and image is captured and available to our Clinical Team and our referring partners,
Established Partners
Our referral partners are Clubfoot Kenya, Fred Hollows Foundation (cataract), Smile Train (cleft), Fistula Foundation, and CURE (pediatric orthopedics).
Clinical Score Card
In the two camps, we saw patients who presented with an array of disorders, from Hypertension to Osteoarthritis to cataract to breast lump to pelvic inflammatory disease to unrepaired tibial fracture. Patients with vision disorders were given readers or will receive prescription lenses in 2 weeks. Other patients were medically treated in the two days from common cold, Allergic ophthalmitis,
Conjuntivitis, pelvic inflammatory disease.
This year DeckerMed has scheduled 90 camps in village Ws and wards. We will see more than 10,000 patients with neglected diseases.
Special Thanks
PGY 5 Surgery Resident: Arte Siyat, MD
Nurse: Jackson Manwa, BSN
Sonographer: Edwin Muriithi, RT
Clinical officer: Faith Kagendo, CO
Optometrist: Lilian Omashim, DO
