Malnutrition Amongst Children - Essay Example

________________________________________________________ Today’s ___________ Clinical Site:__________________________________ Student Signature_____________________________________________________ By signing the form you attest to the accuracy of the hours you spent at this clinical site. INTRODUCTION Arlington Food Assistance Center, AFAC, is a community run nonprofit making organization situated in Arlington in the state of Virginia adjacent to Shirlington. It is an initiative that seeks to alleviate hunger and by extension poverty by donating food to the most vulnerable members of the society. AFAC has been in operation for twenty years since its inception. It is communally run with business people in the area been the largest source of financiers. AFAC physical location is in a large warehouse, which also doubles up as a distribution center. Food arriving to AFAC is sorted and stored in categories. Easily perishable stuff such as milk is refrigerated. Every foodstuff is stored in its category for ease of distribution. The shelves in the facility are chronologically arranged with food types stacked in their respective categories.AFAC serves over 1600 families per week categorized as 3500 adults and 1500 children. Food donated is stored here and later redistributed to the intended recipients. AFAC target vulnerable society members like elderly people that live alone and cannot afford food. Jobless people, college students from poor backgrounds, sick people with no working family members also form part of those who benefit from it. The AFAC Young professional is a group of young people between the ages of 21-40 years who raise awareness and food drives to in aid of the facility. AFAC has a management team and a small full time staff. They heavily rely on members of the community who sign up as volunteers. The whole community with schools, firms and churches pitching in to lend their help supports the project. What doing my clinical analysis I interacted with most members of these interested groups, who, form part of the larger community. The management team is drawn from members of these interest groups with gender been a factor. ASSESSMENT Foodstuff is mostly donated in bulk mostly in big, heavy packaging’s to be redistributed in smaller portions. These bulky packages are moved around the warehouse by the small team of staff aided volunteers. Lack of proper lifting machinery and technology forces the staff and volunteers to manually do this work. This is a constant health risk to the staff and volunteers with potential injuries always lurking. Muscular aches and back pains are the most common complaints from staff and volunteers. DIAGNOSIS Malnutrition especially amongst children is also a potential program since some vital foods are not on provided on regular basis especially fruits and vegetables, which have important vitamins and minerals. These elements are vital for growth and development of children. Hypertension, stemming mostly from obesity is another potential health risk. Obesity become a national problem, it was very evident that it held equal risk to this vulnerable group, perhaps even greater. Indeed some of the recipients of the food aid had children who could be termed as clinically obese. The quest of AFAC to improve nutrition in diet by adding larger portions of animal and daily proteins significantly increases the obesity risk. Contamination of food during packing is yet another potential health hazard. Poor handling of food during packaging is a potential genesis of diseases like diarrhea, food poisoning and stomach upsets. Vulnerable populations also are more susceptible to diseases like cancer and diabetes. Since they lack access to fresh foods, they rely on the donated food that in most cases contains preservatives to increase shelf life. Canned foods contain a greater risk of cancer with preserved foods proven scientifically to having high numbers of carcinogens. The problem worsens in cases where one is suffering from diseases like diabetes and is on special diet. AFAC’s ability to cater for each such case is limited. This may be self-defeating in that poor diet may worsen the situation. PLANNING/IMPLEMENTATION /EVALUATION Facing such immense challenges in performing their noble duties, AFAC and the community at large have put up some measures in combating these challenges. This includes training staff and volunteers on proper hygiene and packaging procedures. Disposable gloves are readily available to minimize skin-food contact. The diet varies from time to time to ensure it is balanced. Some of the observations made had already documented by AFAC. They came up with strategies to prevent and arrest the situation. They concentrate on the primary phase, which aimed at preventing the diseases before its onset. Joint exercise programs and seminars on healthy living are constant strategies employed in the prevention of such diseases. Regular medical checkups are also availed to the vulnerable groups. Early detection of diseases in their incubation period forms the core feature in their secondary preventive method. With early detection, most diseases are easily controlled. For people already diagnosed with such diseases, AFAC helps longevity and good quality lives. Measures to collaborate to bring more sponsors and donors are underway. They seek to make medicine readily available and in essence eradicate the disease. These measures seem workable and practical on paper. In theory some cannot work due to a number of constraints. Top on the list is the lack of funds to buy enough medicines for the most needy. AFAC has a unique challenge in that it deals with vulnerable populations who have different and sometimes unique needs. For instance reformed drug users have different needs to elderly people with cancer. In this clinical experience, practical work complimented theoretical work covered in class. In Public and community health nursing, NSG 420, the main clinical objective met was that of integration, assessment and evaluation of theoretical concepts in relation to the public, more so the vulnerable population. Public and community health nursing health is the major topic covered in class that I had the privilege to expound and do an in depth practical analysis.  Holistic nursing care of vulnerable populations is another topic tackled in my clinical experience at the AFAC. Conclusion To conclude, it is in my view that community based nonprofit organizations like AFAC should be encouraged and supported in their endeavors. More resources and money should be set aside to help the vulnerable population to live healthy lives with good access to medical care. References Arlington Food Center www.afac.org http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthcarefacilities/safepatienthandling.html http://nanda-nursinginterventions.blogspot.com Read More