The importance of counselling for TB in improving community health-seeking behaviour cannot be stressed enough. Skilful counselling by an experienced health counsellor can successfully convince patients to seek timely care and treatment. It can save lives by preventing unnecessary deaths from TB. However, counselling is not always an easy task as it requires experience, patience and empathy on the part of the counsellor. Most importantly, counsellors need to recognize that patients are human beings, respecting their dignity and concerns.
Despite these challenges, Community Facilitator U Aung Soe Yin and Community TB Volunteer Daw Moe Wah, along with the team from Myanmar Health Assistant Association (MHAA) in Seik Phyu Township, Pakokku District, were successful in counselling the father of a 12-year old boy from Chin Nge village, which saved the boy’s life.
Chin Nge village sits by the Yaw creek in Pakokku. To arrive at the village, the MHAA team have to cross the bridge on the Yaw creek and then travel by motorbike along the uneven gravel road along mountain edges. Although the road to Chin Nge is a difficult one, the MHAA team go there regularly to organize TB health education sessions, to raise awareness of TB among villagers. These community health education sessions have also helped to identify TB cases through the discussions that follow.
After one such community health talk, a woman from the audience told Daw Moe Wah that her 12-year old son had had a cough with blood for a long time. She said they were poor and could not take care of the child because her husband was an alcoholic.
“Won’t you bring your child to the hospital for a chest X-ray and a sputum test?” asked U Aung Soe Yin. The mother replied that she could not stop working even for one day, as her family lived from hand to mouth. The team understood the family’s hardships and were determined to provide support in any way possible. At their request, the child’s father came to meet them, but he was drunk and shirtless. Like the mother, he also was reluctant to seek proper care for the child.
“We understand your struggle for your family’s daily survival. Please be assured that we are on hand to provide your son with all the support he needs, such as transport costs to the hospital and nutritional support during treatment – through the MHAA Stop TB, Fight TB Together project supported by the Global Fund. We were able to become health assistants and to help you today because our parents brought us up well. Your child will be consumed by TB without your care and TB treatment, like a flower withers without a gardener’s care and watering”, U Aung Soe Yin told the father.
The father was finally convinced by U Aung Soe Yin’s powerful persuasive words. On the following day, he accompanied his son to the Seik Phyu Hospital outpatient department to have a sputum test and chest X-ray. The result of chest X-ray confirmed that the child had miliary TB and the hospital physician started him on six months of anti-TB treatment.
The child and his father would not have met the MHAA team if there had not been a health education talk in Chin Nge village that day, and the boy’s life would not have been saved. Their lives have been changed forever, thanks to MHAA Community Facilitator U Aung Soe Yin and his team and their skilful use of counselling.
