Engaging Community Health Centres in Health Outreach: The St Mary Soledad Story

It is often said that health is wealth, and this undoubtedly is an adage that forms the very basis of VAHA's core activities. Carrying out health outreach in local communities of target areas is primodial, but however laying the emphasis on partnership and collaboration is key to achieving set goals. Using a community based approach, VAHA in partnership with the St Mary Soledad Catholic Mission Hospital, Mankon, Bamenda, carried out a 01 day community health program on May 2016, aimed at creating awareness on prostate cancer and its associated risk factors. A total of 81 Target participants aged 40 years and above were screened for the Prostate Specific Antigen Test to determine their current health status for appropriate recommendations and healthy habits to uptake. The lessons learnt from this exercise were enormous and encouraged VAHA and team to scale up activities to other target areas, placing the emphasis on partnership and collaboration. Involving a local community health centre in project activities, therefore demonstrated the importance of community based approaches for sustained interventions.