This evening I gave my last talk of the “Parents Health Awareness Talk Series” that is associated with the program to receive a solar light. As a thank you from each community they put together a small feast after my talks in each village. We got to enjoy kava and kakae (food) together and celebrate their hard work and participation.
The last talk focused on obesity (in Bislama its “fat fat tumas”), diabetes (“sik suga”) and high blood pressure (“hae blad pressa”). As more families are moving away from their home islands and working in the capital they are leaving behind their gardens and trading it for a sedentary lifestyle. Living in the “city” means they are not walking around as much and they are choosing rice, crackers, bread and oil over aelan kakae. For the talk I decided that I’d measure everyone’s height and weight as rarely everyone makes it into the clinic for a general check-up (as if we even do general check-ups that’s actually something I need to work on the nurse about – future project). I was able to tell each person their BMI and give them an estimate of their health currently based on body mass. Soon I hope with the extra money from the project we will be purchasing an electronic blood pressure machine so that we can do more screenings. As for testing the blood unfortunately we don’t have the equipment and those that need a test have to go into Vila (I’m hoping to request the Ministry of Health to send us urine test strips).
And so we try our best with what we got.
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