A United Hands Health Fair is primarily an opportunity to screen for certain diseases; an occasion to educate and advise the community about how to prevent the onset of specific diseases, and how to ameliorate and even reverse particular diseases by making healthy life-style choices. In this sense, the health fair is an empowering event for those who attend. In addition to these preventive measures, some curative measures are employed. As always, during a health fair there is a dynamic tension between what can be termed preventive (screening, education, etc.) and curative measures (antibiotics, various medications, and medical procedures,). The classification is somewhat artificial and partially misleading, as preventive measures often will, and do result in a cure.
Our Health Fairs were conducted at two locations (Mamelodi and Lusaka), over a period of four days, from March 21, 2005 to March 24, 2005. Also, we put on programs that emphasized health, both Sabbaths (Saturdays) at the local churches we attended on March 19 and March 26, 2005. Additionally, from March 22 to 24, certain members of our team & the Loma Linda University Dental Team worked at various government sites that included the Mamelodi Day Hospital, Kalafong Hospital, Skinner Center, and Stanza Bopape Community Health Center. Finally, a member of our team, Pastor Campbell, preached almost every night at a local church, in addition to counseling clients at the Health Fairs.
Contributed By
Don W. E. Bovell MD, FACEP
Emergency Medicine Physician
United Hands Medical Director
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