Considering the alarming rate of Diabetes in Pakistan, SHINE launched a holistic Diabetes Program which encompasses medicinal treatment, lifestyle counselling, nutritional support as well as eye care. The program costs $230/year for a patient, and we aim to treat 200 diabetes patients by the end of 2023. With the collaboration of Hussaini Blood Bank and test labs, we have screened a vast number of Diabetes patients. We also monitor patients' blood pressure and obesity levels to ensure a holistic treatment.
JB Azariah family generously sponsored our Community Outreach Program geared at spreading health and hygiene awareness, engaging with communities, and offering services to tackle their most pressing health needs. Our Community Health Workers conduct house-to-house visits to provide awareness material, nutritional supplements as well as contraceptives to women and other community members.
The Malaria program, started in 2017, has been running for over 6 years during which we have tested more than 10,000 patients. The process involves basic history taking and screening, using strip testing followed by confirmatory blood test and thick and thin film microscopy. Each patient is followed up until completely treated from the disease. Recently, we integrated the program with Dengue Eradication, started awareness and preventative measures in the local community via collaboration with institutes like JSMU.
This program aims to identify and treat people with respiratory illnesses. Screening is conducted with a Spirometry test. This program was in response to a baseline that showed that no intervention was in place for rural communities suffering with Asthma and COPD related issues.For people who show obstructive or restrictive lung disease, we provide inhalers and life-saving medication, as well as educational material in regional languages on smoking cessation. With our experience and the data gathered, we intend to replicate our asthma project to our other clinics and also share our management skills and results with other healthcare entities.
Our public health internship program focuses on introducing the field of public health to students of various disciplines in Pakistan. Each month we take up 2 candidates from institutes around Karachi and broaden their perspective of medicine beyond diagnosis and treatment. The process involves programmatic proposal building, research writing workshops, public health in practice via community outreach and field visits to Sindh.
In 2020 SHINE Humanity started a Paani Project to tackle the root cause behind the outbreak of waterborne diseases in rural communities. The cause behind most gastrointestinal diseases which ail the local community lies in usage of contaminated water. Hence, To date we have installed 6 RO plants in various locations in interior Sindh, including Ibrahim Hyderi,Sujawal and Mirpur Khaas. Through robust collaborations with the local communities, we aim to provide clean drinking water to rural areas.
Our Hepatitis Eradication Program started in 2021. In collaboration with The Health Foundation, we initiated screening of the rural population for Hepatitis-C. This was followed by confirming the diagnosis and initiating revolutionary treatment to eradicate the disease from the population. We further included elements of Hepatitis-B eradication by starting vaccination of the identified patient pool. To cater to the rising disease burden, Lady Health Visitors conduct biweekly hepatitis awareness sessions for the community around the market area, Gharo.
The Malnutrition Program at SHINE runs from the Garibson clinic Gharo. Primarily, the screening for malnourished children is done in the community located close to the clinic. The Community Outreach Program works in conjunction with the malnutrition program to screen children using basic health questionnaires and by physically examining the child using the Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) scale. Once identified, children are referred to our clinic for treatment using Ready to use Therapeutic Food.
Started in 2022, the program aims to train our Medical Officers and Allied Health Professionals to identify and treat mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Our Medical officers will also be trained to identify, make a preliminary diagnosis and begin treatment for more severe illnesses such as Schizophrenia.
Under the program we aim to identify the school-going children in Gharo at risk of anemia and provide medical care to the individuals identified. Considering the target population, multiple adolescents suffer from anemia due to worm infestation and lack of healthy diet. SHINE helps cater to this by screening children who show signs of anemia using hemoglobin strip testing and then treating them through nutritional, pharmaceutical and emergency care. Integration of these efforts with awareness sessions and parental counseling helps build a healthier youth population.
