©Naya Jeevan 2011
MEMBER SERVICES
Healthy Hearts and Happy Teeth
By Dr. Zahra Shah, Program Coordinator – Preventive Health
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Naya Jeevan
, through facilitating healthinsurance, does act as a safety net for low-income staff and NGO school children whenit comes to hospital admissions. However,the concept of preventive health care isequally important but virtually non-existent in Pakistan. When I joined
Naya Jeevan
as a Preventive Health Care Coordinator I was unsure of what sort of reaction thedifferent population groups would have to thecurrent workshop for the month;
My HealthyHeart.
Over the past month I have delivered workshops to chefs, waiters, factory workers,domestic staff and NGO school children allover Karachi. Each workshop yields brilliant questions and has helped all of us at
Naya Jeevan
realize we were not wrong in believing that all population groups in Pakistan, if giventhe opportunity, would benefit from learning about a healthier lifestyle.With children, we play an interactive game;there is a ball representing ‘blood’ and onechild is the heart, one is the lungs and oneplays a body. The atmosphere is exciting. Likespectators in a football match, the rest of thechildren shout out which body part the ‘blood’ should go to next. We ask questions and reward them with sweets being thrown acrossthe classroom while engaging them with jokesabout ‘heart break’.With adults, I like to emphasize lifestylechanges, the concepts of exercise and encourage an exercise group to start ineach population group – whether it’srestaurant staff or factory workers. I teachthe mechanisms and warning signs of heart attacks and strokes as part of the curriculum.It’s a learning experience for the entire
Naya Jeevan
team – crossing language barriers,trying to make complicated medical jargontangible and understandable and making impromptu changes in each workshopdepending on the group.
“Raise your hands, place your finger under your thumb – yes, like that … now jump!”
Laughter ripples through the dilapidated classroom, as the children of a small NGOschool all felt their pulse for the first timein their life. As I saw pulses escalating and contagious smiles on their faces I thought about how the first time I did this exercisewas in a privileged school in London. Ireflected on how although the surroundingswere a stark and tragic contrast, childrenall over the world are just the same and asdeserving of quality health care teaching as isanyone else.This was how we kick-started the workshopthemes; complementing each medicalworkshop with a dental workshop, developed and run by Dr. Sadiqa, where children learnhow to keep their teeth ‘happy’ or whentheir teeth are ‘sad’. Adults learn about oral cancers and treatment procedures.Our aim as medical professionals is not to teach biology; the whole concept of preventive health care fails unless you helppeople understand the consequences and mechanisms of the diseases they are being taught about.Every human being, whatever socio-economic group they may belong to, has a right tounderstand their body better and deserves achance to make informed choices regarding their personal health. This is what the
Naya Jeevan
preventive health care workshops areall about.During my five years at medical school in theUK, I never thought I would find myself in asmall factory on the outskirts of Karachi or inThatta, teaching what I learned in Cardiology to individuals, sometimes in broken Sindhi, tosome of those who have never before seena picture of a real heart. I finally understand why our CEO left his lucrative career in theUS, as I feel a unique satisfaction run throughmy veins after each workshop as I hope that we may have prevented one future heart attack from occurring.
Recent medical graduate from King’s CollegeLondon, Zahra returned to Karachi, pursuing her love for the city and her people. After post-flood adventures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, shecomfortably settled at Naya Jeevan, realizing her life’s mission is finding sustainable solutions toPakistan’s public health problems.
C hi l d r en of Man z i l S c hool en g a g e i n an i nt er ac t i v e w or k s hop , d el i v er ed b y Dr . Z ahr a S hah of N a y a J eev an
E n t h u s i a s t i c p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n t h e M y H e a l t h y H e a r t w o r k s h o p
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