Rotarians give Maverley families healthy start for new school year

FOR parents preparing their children for the start of a new school year, getting a medical examination can mean taking time off work and spending several hours waiting at a health centre with their children. But for close to 170 residents of Maverley and surrounding communities, many of those essential services were brought together under one roof at the 15th annual Maverley Health Fair, hosted by the Rotary Club of Trafalgar New Heights recently at Maverley Primary and Infant School. Children were able to receive medical examinations from volunteer medical doctors, dental screening and cleaning, and vision screening.

In addition to those services, adults had access to doctors for blood pressure and blood sugar checks, as well as HIV and STI testing and education courtesy of the Centre for HIV/AIDS Research and Education Services. The Lions Club of St Andrew provided the vision screening as part of its partnership with the Rotary Club, and a local mission of FLOSS International — led by Dr Ajani Blake — provided dental services for the sixth year. People who attended the health fair were particularly pleased with the convenience and quality of the services.

They noted that without the fair they would have had to take their children to the health centre where they could have spent several hours waiting to be served, taking them away from a full day of work. Dr Tiffany Hunter, a member of the Rotary Club of Trafalgar New Heights, examines a child during the 15th staging of the club’s health fair for residents of Maverley and neighbouring communities recently. “The service for medicals went smooth,” said Sherricka Johnson whose children attend Maverley Primary and Infant School, although it was her smaller cousins who she chaperoned at the event.

“Dental, there was a little hiccup there but there wasn’t nothing too much that couldn’t be handled. The team was great— well ‘mannersable’ — they were polite and everyone greet you with a smile,” added Johnson. But the event’s real impact was in the accessibility to health services that it provided for the residents.

“Most of the people that is here work, so they don’t get the time to visit the health centre to do service,” Johnson explained as she pointed out that most residents access services from two health centres — the Drewsland Health Centre in the neighbouring community, and th…