After about 13 weeks of amazing, touching and transformative stories demonstrating how Vodafone Healthline impacted lives, another season of the educative health programme has come to an end.
Starting with COVID-19 sensitization measures, safety protocols and good healthy living practices to remain energized in such a dreadful time, in-house doctors and several other health professionals featured on this season’s show provided professional health counselling to the general public.
Important above all is the lives saved, impacting family sessions where the team travelled across the length and breadth of the country to bring hope to afflicted lives and put joy on the faces of families, who, due to financial challenges could not afford crucial medical care when needed most.
The first episode of the season began with Kweku Simon a nine-year-old accident victim who lost both legs and got his education truncated and dreams of becoming a soldier in the future shattered.
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The team continued to Akrofenso-Oda, to the rescue of young Comfort with one leg longer than the other. It was all joy and happiness above the comprehension of her family. Then to Christabel Assifuah’s aid in the Western Region, after she swallowed a calculator battery and required surgery to correct a complication.
In Wassa Amenfi, Gadaffi was a beneficiary of Vodafone Healthline’s benevolence and it was an exciting experience in the entire farming community when he was brought back after the surgery was done. Cecilia Aidoo, an SHS student in the Central Region with a right arm issue was not left out either. Now she can wash her own clothes, write with a pen and carry out other activities and this brings so much joy to her family.
Not forgetting Mr. and Mrs. Dzikunu, of Tokor in the Volta Region who are now confident of having a child of their own, kind courtesy Vodafone. At Dodowa, Nasira Lihadi is now a happy beauty in school.
Also, in this final episode, Dr. Edem Kofi Anyigba, Plastic Surgeon, provided insights on burns and fire safety, indicating that classification of burns is not only limited to fire but any extreme temperature, be it hot or cold. He explained that when a person is exposed to very cold temperatures or substances, the cells in the body die as well, adding that usually, that happens to some blacks who want to travel to Europe using irregular routes on the high seas.
In Ghana, he indicated that the type of burn very common is that of hot liquids especially in children followed by flames from a gas explosion. “This type of burn, referred to as thermal burn, is symbolic to our traditional or cultural setting where cooking is done at the floor level so it is easy for kids to touch hot materials and run into them while the elderly are cooking. When it comes to chemical burns in Ghana, incidents of acid burns used to be rampant in some time past but the situation is better now,” he said.
With regards to first aid for burns, he stressed that primary prevention should be paramount, then one should try to reduce the impact of the burn by pouring running cold water on the surface of the area to reduce the heat amount.
In terms of fire burns, he advised that if the clothes of the person are still in flames, they should fall down on to the floor, roll on the ground until the fire is off. He further urged parents to prevent kids from getting close to cooking areas and gas cylinders to prevent the incident of burns.
