The medical team is vital to the School Continuity Program. They are responsible for ensuring the health of all the monitors but also for trying to improve the lives of children through workshops and presentations about health. They are interacting with children the same way as the monitors, participating and organizing activities, but they also care for and protect them.
When the School Continuity Programme started, the medical team did not exist as there were only few European monitors coming to Cambodia. However, it got bigger year after year and became what it is today: a team of more than 200 European monitors. For two years, the Medical Team project is set up in collaboration with the Felipe Segovia Foundation and the university Camilo José Cela, which provide the means needed for doctors to come to Cambodia.
The team is made of both medical and nursing students as well as professionals. The latter are in charge of the consultations, which are fundamental to the health of the monitors. “It seems fundamental to me that children learn how infections develop, how diseases are transmitted, how to improve their health. But it is also important to have the support of medical students for the monitors’ following ups. In the end, we have at least fifteen to twenty consultations a day, so it is very important to be vigilant about the functioning of the rest of PSE”, Miguel Ángel, coordinator of the Medical Team.
Most of these children ignore everything about health issues.
The medicine students spend most of their time giving prevention and sensitization talks about health. Depending on the project they visit and the age range of the kids they are with, they focus on different topics. For example, the consequences of drugs, alcohol or tobacco consumption or sexuality are topics that are mainly discussed with the teenagers. With the younger ones, the workshops aim to teach much simpler but necessary things for daily life, such as handwashing. These workshops are essential. Most of these children ignore everything about health issues, they do not even know the anatomy.
The usefulness of these interventions gets particularly obvious during workshops about girls’ menstruation that are organized by the girls of the medical team. “We didn’t know very well how to approach it, because we had no idea what a teenager knows here. So we started by asking a lot of questions about what the periods are and what they are for. They replied that it happened to get rid of the bad blood being in their bodies and that, meanwhile, they couldn’t eat or drink certain things. We teach them that there is no exception, there’s nothing they cannot do while they have their periods. Every woman has it and it is normal, they should take for granteed that speaking about it is natural”, Alba, European monitor. However, the real pride of the monitors came when all the teens girls wanted to try using tampons after having been shown how to use it. It is without a doubt the proof that all the talks they shared made lead somewhere.
All the volunteers in this project want to improve the lives of all children, their families and the Cambodian society in general.
“Every year we see the situation improve and finally that fills you up the most. After three years here, we see that the children remember things. I am thrilled every time I think about it”, Ana, European instructor for the third year. All the volunteers in this project want to improve the lives of all children, their families and the Cambodian society in general and this can be seen in their work. Whenever a major improvement is noticed among the children because of their daily small efforts, all team members are filled with pride.
When they visit a program, they carefully observe children, try to detect if they have any health problems that need to be treated, and if it is very basic, they take care of it themselves. “Sometimes we can only give them a little remedy, but they always give us back a smile, always”, Geraldine, European doctor. However, if the child needs more treatment, they identify him so that they can tell about him to the group of Khmer doctors who work at PSE throughout the year, in order to facilitates their work.
“Sometimes we can only give them a little remedy, but they always give us back a smile, always”, Geraldine.
Since there are programs also in other provinces, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, the doctors cannot travel every day if there is an emergency. That’s why it has been decided to send there a medical referent who would remain permanently there. In Siem Reap it is Paloma, and in Sihanoukville, Belén. In addition, some of the doctors who are usually in Phnom Penh travel for a few days to support them and help them in their prevention workshops.
“I’m the only nurse here, so I do all the nursing work. But I have the support of the coordinators and the Social Team, so it’s not a problem. Being able to participate in the activities and being another instructor gives me a little more freedom and I can a little bit of everything, which allows me to enjoy it a lot,” says Paloma.
The objective of every of them is to improve the lives of as many people as possible.
The objective of every of them is to improve the lives of as many people as possible. Although this is a very ambitious and long-term goal, it is true that children are gradually coming to understand the importance of health and taking care of themselves.
Jaime, European instructor for the second year in this project, sums up very well the emotions created by this team, both within the monitors’ team and with the children: “Knowing that you are changing a kid’s life, or the global knowledge of a society about health, knowing that I am “creating” good health, that through my work I am raising social awareness about health, is what I want to do every day, in Spain and in my future life. That might be my dream: to make people more health conscious and live more fully.”
PSE would like to thank Jamms and Jamming for their economic supports to this project.
