MEDICAL PROGRAMS

Medical Programs under the Haven Project include:

• Medical outreaches - to rural villages, refugee camps and other areas of need
• Teaching health fundamentals:
• Back to basics course - a health and hygiene course for children’s home workers
• Village health worker training
• Other
• Public Health reviews - of children’s homes and villages
• Regular medical checkups
• for all children under the Haven Foundation
• any other children’s homes requesting this service
• women and young girls involved in prostitution
• dr@coc  - which is an advisory service for people who do not have access to an international standard of medical care
• Feeding and dietary programs for children

Medical outreaches happen throughout Thailand and Myanmar, and have also occurred in India and Cambodia.  They were the first activity of the Haven project and the outreaches were first launched in 1996 because the staff of COC Thailand went out to the villages they could not stand by and watch the people suffering with inadequate access to medical treatment.  Since then the project has developed with its own staff and changing areas of need as the world develops.

Medical outreaches can occur with a small (2) or large (20) number of people and can go from a few hours to days depending on the number of people needing assistance and how remote the area is.  The outreaches usually provide basic health care and advice to people who can not access normal health care or to whom it is very difficult to get routine health care.  People with more serious conditions are either referred to a nearby clinic, taken to the clinic by staff or arrangements are made for them to receive the care needed.

Back to Basics

Back to basics is a two day health course specifically designed for workers in Children’s homes.  The Haven Project has many of its own children’s homes and the senior staff noticed that many of the staff living with the children did not know basic health and hygiene principals.  This prompted the development of the course aimed at educating the staff on basic health and hygiene principals as well as some issues that are particular to SE Asia.

The course is compulsory for all staff living with the children in the Haven project and is available to anyone else who would like to attend.  It is run once a year in Chiang Mai and has been run once in Myanmar.  There are proposals to do additional courses in Myanmar, Mae Sot and Mae Sai.

Village health worker training

This three week course is currently being developed and the planned to be run for the first time in 2012.  It is aimed at increasing the general knowledge of health, hygiene and first aid amongst the remote villages in Thailand and Myanmar. 

Other

The medical program is often asked to assist in other groups teaching programs.  This can be for an afternoon or multiple days.  They also do single subject teaching when asked usually for students or children’s homes, schools and other training courses requiring a health component.

There are many opportunities to do public health reviews in the Asian region.  These reviews look at the community being examined rather than individuals and what can be done to improve the health for the entire group, whether this is a children’s home, village or illegal encampment.

These reviews look at the basics for healthy communities, water, electricity, livestock, homes, schooling, waste disposal, food availability and production.  In children’s homes we also look at staffing, dietary menus, space allocation and measure this against The Haven Project’s minimum standards.  These standards do slightly vary for different countries mainly to make them achievable in countries where basic services are often lacking.

The medical checkups are specifically designed to review children living in a children’s home.  These checks are done regularly in homes under the Haven Foundation and as per request for homes outside the foundation.  The children are reviewed for basic health issues and their growth is measured against common levels and for children regularly reviewed against their previous levels.  The homes are given advice about commonly occurring issues within their home as well as specific treatments for any child requiring it.

dr@coc is the name given to the advisory service operated out of the COC Main office in Chiang Mai.  The service provides free advice for anyone asking for it wether they live in the Chiang Mai region or in other countries around the world.  The service has a small area to see people locally but principally works via electronic media, either via the phone or the internet.  The service is not to be used to replace a doctor/ or medical service in areas where this is readily available.  The service uses qualified personal and is also able to give second opinions from a Western view point for those people who are not living in a culture familiar to them and need assistance understanding what is occurring.

This program provides food, vitamins, milk powder to children who have been identified as needing more nutrition than their parents can adequately supply.  The program has successfully been running for many years.  Children are enrolled for either a short time or for a longer program.  Often the children just need a “kick start” to get back on track and thus many children enter the program for a year or two.