Some of the Health Fair Services that were offered included:
Grace Resource Ministries sponsored a free community health fair & health professionals career pathway on Aug 6, 2022, at Roberts Park and Community Center, 1300 E. Martin Street, Raleigh, NC.
Some of the Health Fair Services that were offered included:
The community service also included Career Pathway Advising and captured the following careers among others:
We are grateful to our amazing Sponsors who include:
In December 2021 and January 2022, Grace Resource Ministries (GRM) mission team visited Kenya to minister, encourage and pray for the vulnerable: the sick, orphans, widows, and the poor families.
Some of the organizations that we visited and ministered to include Hephzibah project (Ruiru), El Shaddai Children’s Home Limuru, Githogoro Slum (Runda), Full Gospel Church.
Here are the highlights:
Donated Bibles to the new converts.
We thank you for your great support through prayers, financial and material donations. We give glory to God.
Health literacy has been identified as a priority area for national action in the United States, first by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as an objective for Healthy People 2010 (HHS, 2000), and again in the Institute of Medicine report Health Literacy. In addition, National Action Plan envisioned plans to provide everyone with access to accurate and actionable health information.
Without clear information and an understanding of prevention and self-management of conditions, people are more likely to skip necessary medical tests. They also end up in the emergency room more often, and they have a hard time managing chronic diseases. Health literacy deficits affect half the American patient population and are linked to poor health, ineffective disease management, and high rates of hospitalization. Restricted literacy has also been linked with less satisfying medical visits and communication difficulties, particularly in terms of the interpersonal and informational aspects of care.
Limited health literacy affects people of all ages, races, incomes, and education levels, but the impact of limited health literacy disproportionately affects lower socioeconomic and minority groups. It affects people’s ability to search for and use health information, adopt healthy behaviors, and act on important public health alerts. Limited health literacy is also associated with worse health outcomes and higher costs. It is worth noting that people with limited health literacy—a third of U.S. adults—are at particularly high risk of poor health outcomes from chronic conditions. Currently, more than sixty percent of adults in the United States have a chronic condition, such as diabetes, hypertension, or depression, and 40 percent have multiple chronic conditions, and many adults are at risk of developing chronic conditions.
Health literacy has been identified as a priority area for national action in the United States:
First, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to HHS’ Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, Health literacy is in the ACA because health policy makers recognized that activated and informed patients are on the critical path to increasing access to coverage and managing costs. These are the goals of the ACA. Health literacy is mentioned dozens of times, directly or indirectly, in the ACA because policy makers understand health care cannot be reformed in any meaningful way without health literate patients.
Secondly, the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy was launched in May 2010.
Thirdly, the Plain Language Act signed into law in October 2010 made all federal agencies practice what they preached.
In mid-2010, I received report that my dad fell hurting his ribs. My mom, who was visited at the time, packed up her bags and left to go take care of him. Sooner or later, our family was hit with the bad news—our dad had been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. And so, the long journey started.
My dad would have periods of feeling sick and too weak, frequent doctor visits, hospitalizations, oral chemotherapy cycles, and finally dialysis. I will never forget the many times when he struggled to take 80 Dexathemasone tablets. Tablets higher than 1mg doses were not available, despite nausea and vomiting.
How could I ever forget a staff asking us to prepay for a blocked dialysis catheter to be removed? If we did not pay, I guess it would have been okay to let him live with it or bleed to death. Did I mention there was no education to neither him nor caregivers? Or guidance in purchasing medications from the pharmacy of the absolute best hospital in the country (per his Primary Care Physician’s recommendation)? Then, we received a call that he had been given another patient’s medication.
Dad was a church and community leader. He was the best man that ever lived (besides Jesus). He had many visitors, but few to none were aware of his most needed rest, quietness, encouragement, physical assistance, risks of infection, and respite care.
Nevertheless, in 2014, God gave him favor by enabling him to take a trip to Israel, a country he always wanted to visit. Unfortunately, he fell sick on his way home from Israel, and, approximately 2 weeks later, he passed away.
It is this story and the many untold stories that are in many people’s hearts and mind that have birthed the vison of Grace Resource Ministries.
Grace Resource Ministries is a vision in honor of my/our dad, David C. Kamau. Rest in peace, Dad.
This, and many real stories like this are the reason I am who I am today. A woman with a heart to make a difference in people’s lives and to be a blessing to anyone with a health challenge by bringing information to them. Scripture says, people perish due to lack of knowledge…
*****
Eva Kamau is a mother of two great young men with a heart to serve the people. By profession, I am a nurse with over 20 years of experience in home care, nursing homes, assisted living, medical rehabilitation, hospital, and utilization management/care management. My journey in nursing started as a licensed practical nurse, later bridged to registered nursing, bachelors and finally master’s in health administration.
