| Health care providers at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and Health Centres met at the Soroptimist Club’s Conference Room this week for a two-day workshop which dealt with sexually-transmitted diseases, as a separate concern from HIV/AIDS. |
The facilitator was Dr. Hylton Kong of Jamaica whose visit to Anguilla was coordinated by Civilla Kentish, Coordinator with the National Aids Programme. Mrs. Kentish told The Anguillian that the workshop was mainly about counselling. “Over the years, most of the attention was given to HIV which is also a sexually-transmitted infection, but I felt that our health workers needed to be exposed to all the many STIs,” she stated. “The workshop is sponsored by the Pan American Health Organisation. It is part of a European Union project which has been going on for about two years. We have had STI workshops for young people out of school, as once students leave school they don’t get any health education; and this is our last workshop.”
Dr. Kong, a Medical Doctor, working as a specialist with persons with STI diseases, said: “I was invited here to train health care providers, in this case Nurses and Health Educators, about sexually-transmitted infections. Theseare oftentimes forgotten because HIV is well known and everybody focuses on that, but sexually-transmitted infections are still very important and so people need updates on them.” Asked about her method of training, Dr. Kong went on: “I have been going through the different symptoms and also the fact that many persons with these diseases will not have symptoms or signs and know how to manage them…We are also going through techniques about how to interview patients to get a better sexual history about them, and how to help them with their risks of getting STIs.” |
