Today Frances sent the UK her second eyewitness account of the Sickle Cell screening programme.
The photo shows one of the earlier monthly meetings of the SC disease support group. Here Fantsuam Foundation offers advice and support to this group. This meeting was held under the mango tree at the fish farm. I believe that the numbers are increasing each month and when I last asked - towards the end of 2010 - there were @ 100 people attending.
" I went for 'my' second sickle cell screening exercise on Sunday, 20th February. Rather than being in a fairly accessible place close to the main road, Shadalafiya is 12 kms off the main road down a very rocky uneven track. We travelled in two vehicles , a minibus and a pick up. The pick up had to make a small detour as we reached the turn off point so the minibus went ahead down the track and out of sight. I was in the pick up when it turned on to the track and shortly afterwards encountered a fork with a rather ambiguous road sign. There was no mobile network to check with anyone that we were on the right road but we took the right fork. As we bumped along I could only hope that we had made the right choice!
I was very relieved when eventually we emerged into a very spacious area which was Shadlafiya. As each location is different ,the first decisions to be made on arrival is where to set up the various stations for the counselling, the registration and the 'bleeding'. The most information is to know where the sun is and in which direction it is travelling! We were lucky that there were a number of very large shady trees although everyone had to keep moving their tables and chairs around to keep in the shade as the sun moved around.
The proceeduere was the same as on the previous screening but this time I noticed about four elderly men who were sitting and watching everything that went on . John explained that these were village elders who had come to give their support. Their prescence endorsed the value of what was happening and gave confidence to the parents bringing their children. They stayed throughout the day until we ended about 5 o'clock."
At the very end when we had told everyone we could screen no more and everything was virtually packed up, a very young woman arrived with her baby. Sweat was pouring off her face as she had heard about the screening late and had rushed to get to the place on time. No one had the heart to turn her away so someone found a spare registration form and the phlebotomist found the equipment to do a heel prick.
This time we managed to do all the collationof the information, matching registration froms and samples before we left. There was a lot of laughter and joking as we bumped our way back to the main road do and reached home at about 8 pm."
Click here to read Frances' First eyewitness account.