Healthy Skin Days in the Northern Territory (NT)
One Disease will be hosting a series of healthy skin days in the NT in the upcoming weeks. Healthy Skin Days are planned across three different communities in the NT. Things kick off at Gunbalanya on the 4th of November with a return to community on the 11th. Then, we will be in Galiwin’ku on the 11th – 15th November, and returning on the 22nd. Yurruwi, which was scheduled for the 27th of November, has has been postponed until early 2020.
We’re really excited to work with services, schools, and other community groups to get us closer to scabies free zones at the household and community level.
Over the coming weeks we’ll be posting various resources and checklists to help make these days come to life in the most practical and manageable way possible.
“As we all know, community involvement is everything when it comes to Health Skin Days.
Aboriginal Health Workers are visiting house to house in the lead up to the Healthy Skin day on November 13 to share the story and plans for the day.
Their visits are then captured on the clinical information systems to make sure everyone is covered.
With engagement like this we’re sure it will be a great success.” – Michelle Dowden, CEO, One Disease
If you have any questions please feel free to ask away in the comments below and we’ll be sure to get back to you. Or, if you have any feedback, other useful tools, or you have suggestions for something else that we could develop which would be helpful in making your skin day a success, you can use the comment section to let us know.
Update 1
Planning Healthy Skin Days
With Healthy Skin Days happening across three different communities in the coming weeks we thought it could be helpful to share a few tools to make these days run as smoothly as possible. If you know someone who is involved in skin days and the like, please point them towards this page.
The first tool is all about the planning and preparation that goes into making these days a success. It includes a list of all the things you might need. It also includes a checklist of quantities required, order dates, and whether the items have been packed on the actual day.
As we all know, these days work best when they are community led. So, we’ve included some suggestions for engagement beforehand and on the day.
Healthy Skin Day 1 treatment guidelines, ivermectin dosages, presumptive guide for treating scabies, and day 1 assessment form
The main objective of a Healthy Skin Day is community wide involvement in skin checks, and scabies treatments. Sounds simple, but we all know it can be a big undertaking. Here we are sharing four tools for the teams as they go house to house. More specifically, these are clinical tools for people like Aboriginal Health Workers and Nurses.
The first is a flow chart which breaks down treatment options, and the process for documentation and follow up. The second, details ivermectin dosages by weight. The third helps you figure out whether there is clinical evidence of scabies and if a recall needs to be added. The last is a documentation template. This captures what has happened at each house, and whether follow up is required. As there’s a lot to do with each house, we’ve found it can be good to have someone working with the Aboriginal Health Worker and/or Nurses, who is dedicated to data entry.
Healthy Skin Day – the all important day 7 follow up
Here we’re focusing on the ever important follow up treatments 7 days after the Healthy Skin Day. When planning your skin day it’s best to make sure you have people to help out. This is especially true on the first day, and on follow up 7 days after. We know everyone is busy with lots of things, not just skin. But making sure teams are available for the follow up 7 days after is just as important.
Similar to our previous post, this one includes a flow chart for house to house treatment follow up 7 days after the Healthy Skin Day, and the corresponding documentation template.