Dr. Abbey and the CHWs

For a little over a year several of the doctors/residents associated with CHI have been starting up a Community Health Worker (CHW) program.  Women from the local communities have been training with the doctors and learning how to provide basic primary care, prenatal care, act as patient advocates and even coordinators of medical care.  Before going “live,” with the girls actually going out into their communities, Dr. Abbey and Liz have been working on a health survey for them to conduct at each home in their designated communities.  This training session was an effort to finalize that survey, and make sure the Creole translations made sense to the girls.  I tried to help by looking up needed terms in our various Haitian Creole/English dictionaries, but mainly just observed the meeting.  It was so exciting to see something like this coming to life, especially after reading so much about CHW programs around the world, and how positive these can be for improving public health of communities, and empowering the women who are involved.  This is really going to be amazing.