Take your drugs regularly
Children with sickle cell condition have been advised to take the medication given to them regularly when they attend clinic.
A Deputy Director of the Family Health Division of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, who gave the advice, explained that often children who suffered from sickle cell did not understand why they had the condition and why they had to take so many medicines and as such refused to take their medication.
Advertisement
She disclosed that some of those children even went to the extent of breaking their schedules for going for follow-up clinics, saying that such actions could be detrimental to their health.
Speaking during a telephone interview with the Junior Graphic, Dr Sagoe-Moses advised children who did not have the condition not to laugh, tease or shun their friends who had sickle cell.
“Rather, give them all the support you can. For instance, you can find out from them when their next visit to the clinic is and remind them to take their medication,” she advised.
She advised children who had the condition to regularly bath with warm water and also drink a lot of water to prevent them from having crisis.
Dr Sagoe-Moses mentioned some of the common signs of the condition to include having yellowish palms and eyes, painful joints, pain in the bones and an enlargement of the abdomen.
She urged parents with sickle cell children to know the things that triggered their crisis and help them to understand their condition.
She also advised parents not to give their sickle cell children iron supplements because the medication did not work well on children with their condition.
