- JDPC Executive Director, Off-sets the Hospital Bill of a Poor Woman and Her Baby Who could not go home after Five weeks of Being Discharged of Cesarean Operation at Kaetochukwu Hospital
Rev. Fr. Dr. Matthew Ezea with the family after offsetting all their bills
The Executive Director of JDPC Nsukka, Rev. Fr. Dr. Matthew Ezea paid the hospital bill (196,000) of a poor woman who was discharged from Kaetochukwu hospital over one month after a cesarean delivery but could not go home for nonpayment of the full hospital bill. Mrs. Chinyere Ugwoke from Amaemje village in Iheakpu Awka was admitted at Kaetochukwu Hospital on 9th September 2022 for a cesarean section since she was having internal bleedings and some complications in her pregnancy. After the successful operation and the purchase of over 13pints of blood and a second operation to sustain the woman, the hospital billed the family a total of four hundred and six thousand, four hundred naira only (406,400). The husband, Mr. Ugwuoke Innocent, being a farmer, could not afford even one-quarter of the hospital bill even with the sale of all his personal properties. Mr. Innocent explained that after his family members were able to sell some of their valuables and raised 105,000 as the first deposit, the hospital still held his wife and her baby and mandated him to complete the bill before they could go home.
However, the husband further explained that after staying for three weeks at the hospital and it seemed there was no headway, he and his wife decided that after breast feeding the baby in the morning, the wife should go to Peace Park and start begging for Alms while he looks after the baby and their other child until the wife returns. According to him, although this strategy did not get them out of the hospital, but it helped to solve their immediate hunger problem for another one week.
In another development, the woman also affirmed receiving another support from Chidi Obeta, a political office aspirant during his hospital visitations at Kaetochukwu hospital. According to the woman, Chidi Obeta paid the sum of hundred thousand naira (100,000) to the hospital’s account and gave her another five thousand naira (5,000) for their feeding.
Meanwhile, Mr. Innocent, the husband maintained that even with all his plea at this juncture, the hospital still held them until someone directed him to seek help at JDPC Nsukka.
In Mr. Innocent Ugwoke’s words “I want to thank the Catholic Church and Fr. Matthew Ezea for coming to my aid at this point when I have given up all hopes. I still cannot believe that someone who had never known me could give me this kind of help. May God reward you for all your good works for humanity especially the poor people”.
JDPC Nsukka in her OVC 4gate project with CCFN and CDC, embarked on risk assessment of all children enrolled in her program with unknown or negative status. Re-risk assessment is done every 6 months to discover if the child had involved him or herself in HIV risk factors. Within the year, a total of 3051 OVC were risk assessed, out of which 3004 were eligible for testing, some who did not have easy access to facility were provided with oral quick HIV testing kits and tested by community case workers. Referrals were also made to facilities as well. This process helped to illicit several HIV positive children and caregivers who were linked immediately to treatment and are retained in care. These activities enabled the organization to establish risk reduction strategies. Through risk assessments, people who were affected by HIV are being thought on how to avoid transmitting HIV to others and helped them to access treatment.
- JDPC Nsukka embarks on HIV Prevention messages to Adolescents and young people.
Within the year 2022, JDPC Nsukka provided HIV prevention messages to adolescents between the ages of 9 to 17 years on quarterly bases. Over eight thousand (8000) adolescents were reached and enlightened on the various means of contracting HIV and the risk reduction strategies to minimize HIV infection. The organization also carried out school sensitization on HIV prevention and sexual reproductive health education across secondary schools within communities in Nsukka and Uzo-uwani local government areas. This contributed very immensely to reducing new transmission of HIV infection amongst the adolescents.
- JDPC Nsukka Provides Community Level Adherence Support to HIV Positive Beneficiaries.
To improve retention in care for children and caregivers living with HIV, JDPC Nsukka strengthened community-level adherence through the services of its care and support officer and trained community case managers who reside in the community and spoke their local languages. Clinic appointment monitoring register and viral load tracker were developed to track adherence of eligible beneficiaries on weekly bases. Assessments are conducted every month for children living with HIV (CLHIV) to identify barriers to adherence.
The CBO provide interventions to address barriers such as provision of transport support to OVC living with HIV and their caregivers to attend clinics for drugs pick viral load, enhanced adherence counseling and other various clinics, provision of reminder systems, provision of food, motivational and strength-based counseling, basic knowledge on HIV/AIDS, disclosures to mention but a few.
The organization mobilizes adolescents and young people living with HIV to be part of HIV support groups called (Operation triple zero programs). These interventions contributed immensely towards the achievement of 95:95:95 of HIV treatment target. The overall suppression rate for her beneficiaries rose to 97 % as against 96% suppression recorded in the last program year for OVC 4GATES project.
- JDPC Nsukka Continues Food Demonstration Activities with her vulnerable Families with Malnourished children.
Image showing food demonstration exercise in different communities.
The quarterly nutrition assessment exercise for children by JDPC Nsukka through the services of her case managers which revealed children who are malnourished necessitated the need for healthy food demonstration for her undernourished children. Within the year, food demonstration exercise was carried out in 6 different communities using the caregiver’s forum support group and VSLA cohorts. It is a common practice for some caregivers especially those in the rural areas to sell their farm produce from their garden in exchange for processed food and the likes. JDPC Nsukka therefore intervened, leveraging on some of the farm produce from their garden to organize the demonstration. Caregivers of the OVC were educated on the nutritional components of the locally sourced food materials used such as pumpkins leaf (Ugu), waterleaf, spinach, pepper, onions, etc. The step-by-step demonstrations on how to prepare the local dish and still retain the nutrients in the vegetables were shown. Caregivers were further taught the importance of meal planning as it ensures households eats a well-balanced meal, saves cost and time, reduces stress, ensures high quality food, and avoid wastage of food.
- JDPC NSUKKA Carries out Nutrition Assessments, Growth Monitoring and Provides Nutritional Supports to Malnourished Children.
JDPC Nsukka carries outgrowth monitoring exercise on quarterly bases to checkmate the nutritional status of her orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) and provides the appropriate nutritional interventions that will help malnourished children to bounce back to good health and nutrition. Over 3429 OVC were nutritionally assessed using Anthropometric measures (Weight, Height, MUAC, BMI), A total of 30 who were found malnourished through this exercise received nutritional services which ranged from; provision of food, nutritional supplements (soya plus, vitamin A), nutritional education, nutritional counseling and referral to dieticians in different facilities that are in collaboration with JDPC Nskka.
- JDPC Nsukka embarks on water, sanitation and hygiene education and provides Sanitation and Hygiene Kits to over 30 households.
JDPC Nsukka within the year provided hygiene kits with water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) messaging to her beneficiaries. The households through the services of community case managers and care and support officer were educated on safe water storage practices and thereafter supported with buckets (buckets with spigots) based on needs to put into practice all that they had learnt. They were also exposed to other locally available and acceptable materials that can drop water and be used for drinking water in the households. The beneficiaries were made know that treated or purified water has to be stored properly to prevent recontamination.
Drinking from the container should be done in a way that cross-contamination can be avoided. The container should prevent hands, cups and dippers from touching the water, so that the water does not get re-contaminated. Our beneficiaries were exposed to containers that serve as physical barriers to recontamination such as small opening with a lid or cover that discourages users from placing potentially contaminated items such as hands, cups, or ladles into the stored water, a spigot or small opening to allow easy and safe access to the water without requiring the insertion of hands or objects into the container.
On the issue of hygiene practices, the organization through the services of the field workers during home visits and different women forums and groups educated members of her communities on the needs for construction, proper use, and maintenance of latrines, regular hand washing, especially after defecation and before eating, preparing food or handling drinking water, careful storage and preparation of water and food.
- JDPC Nsukka continues in her Deworming Exercise covering over 3000 Orphan and vulnerable Children.
JDPC Nsukka continues to deworm her orphans and vulnerable children and enlighten the caregivers on the importance of occasional deworming of children, children’s education and their livelihoods. This exercise leveraged on the Nsukka LGA to cover a greater number of the orphans and vulnerable children.
The community case managers helped in administering these drugs in households of our beneficiaries. Recorded outcomes of deworming amongst the children include decreases anemia and improved nutrition, increased growth and weight gain, improved cognition and mental and physical development, increased resistance to other infections, improved children’s ability to learn better and be more active in school. The massive deworming within the year for OVC 2 years and above covered a total number of 3342.