Today I went along with a nurse and community health worker to visit rural villages.\u00a0 CMC has a mobile rural nursing unit and doctor unit that go to 82 different villages on a rotating schedule.\u00a0 The nurse, driver and I started out at 8:30 and drove to pick up the health aide.\u00a0 We visited 3 villages in the morning.\u00a0 They pointed out that most of the villagers performed coolie labor (agricultural work in the fields) and these were very poor villages. \u00a0The health aide is usually an older lady who knows everyone in her villages.\u00a0 She keeps track of who is sick, who has died, babies that have been born.\u00a0 Each village has a \u201ccr\u00e8che\u201d- preschool that is free for the children of that village.\u00a0 Many of the homes, really small compounds with several low brick or mud buildings with thatched roofs, surround an open space where there is often an open sided building for the animals.\u00a0 In the center there is also a cooking area-several homes used wood cooking\u2026 seems to be a good method for keeping the heat out of the house.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I did get to go into a few small homes, had to duck low to get under the thatched overhang.\u00a0 Often they had a hotplate hooked to a small propane tank for cooking in the one room of the home.\u00a0 Mats were rolled up but served as bedding during the nights.\u00a0 Pots, pans and utensils were hung on the walls.\u00a0 Most had a small television, a fan and one electric light bulb.\u00a0 Everyone was very nice but often the villagers (especially children) followed us to look at me.\u00a0 Most homes offered me a plastic chair to sit in\u2026no one else sat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We visited one village that is considered a model village, Kattupudhur, with a communal toilet and bathing building.\u00a0 Most homes do not have a toilet, showers are taken with clothing on at the village pump.\u00a0 Kattupudhur was very clean, the streets had no trash and there were no open ditches for sewage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, I observed the immunization clinic. Imagine 180 small children along with their mothers, and often grandmother and siblings sitting in the HOT open air hall.\u00a0 All were registered, the child weighed and their reflexes tested.\u00a0 If a problem with the reflexes was noted by the OT, they showed the mother exercises to use with the baby.\u00a0 One child with Down Syndrome was identified\u2026the parent had been told to bring the baby in for assessment but had been to busy to do that.\u00a0 The OT talked sharply to her and stressed the importance of bringing the child in while she was young\u2026he was not encouraged by her motivation.\u00a0 I was told that often the family believes that if they have a child with a disability it is because they have done something bad and are being punished.\u00a0 It was a busy morning and all was quiet by about 1:00.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I went along with a nurse and community health worker to visit rural villages.\u00a0 CMC has a mobile rural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/bethgrubb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}