AVH Community Outreach Program
Augusta Victoria Hospital established unique community-based diabetes and breast cancer screening programs to address the huge national needs for high quality and comprehensive services within the Palestinian healthcare system. The programs embody the values, ethics, and moral commitments of the LWF/AVH toward the rights of the poor and the oppressed. Access to high quality, affordable, and dignified healthcare as a basic human right.
According to the World Diabetes Foundation, the prevalence of Diabetes in the Palestinian population in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is high, in the range of 15.3% compared to a worldwide prevalence of 6%.
The AVH diabetes team helps patients with the adoption of a healthier lifestyle, including physical activity and exercise, nutrition, weight control and smoking cessation. The team also provides foot care, eye care, individual and group counseling, standardized diabetes laboratory testing (HbA1c and Microalbuminuria (MAU)), patient, family and community education regarding diabetes care and prevention of complications, in addition to home visits.
In 2019, the Mobile Diabetes Clinic performed 232 visits to our partner clinics in the communities of the West Bank. 6,664 people (64% female, 36 % male) directly benefitted from education, awareness, screening, and the comprehensive diabetes care services provided by the mobile clinic. On the occasion of the national celebrations of the World Diabetes Day in November 2019, 107 diabetes patients were discovered during the awareness and screening campaigns performed in the community.
Since 2009, the LWF has been providing a community-based breast cancer-screening program to support the preventive, screening, and curative services related to breast cancer in Palestine.
The program assists women living in rural villages, refugee camps and areas where the needed services are not available. The mobile program helps to ensure better access by providing the services closer to home.
In addition, the program empowers women to inquire more about their right to health care and how to access AVH in Jerusalem to receive holistic services in cancer diagnosis and treatment. It introduces them to the benefits of self-examination, clinical examination, and early detection. The program also introduces health education to confirm that breast cancer can be cured if discovered at an early stage.
In 2019, the mobile clinic reached 6,923 women. 4,394 womwn were trained on how to perform breast self-exams and 1,892 women received mammography screening at our mobile clinic.