PROVIDING
PROVIDING THE HOLISTIC NURSING PERSPECTIVE IN TANZANIA
While only a 24 mile trek, the very bumpy ride along rutted dirt
roads took an hour and a half to reach Milola, where Associate
Professor Patricia Peek, DNP, RN, PNP-BC, and a team of
Tanzanian officials, evaluators, and MSU partners gathered each
of five days to observe the first comprehensive health screening
of 827 school children in October 2013.
This vast east African country, which draws tourists to
Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti Plain, Lake Victoria, Lake
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Tanganyika, and its famous national parks and game preserves,
faces many challenges. Tanzanians experience a high incidence
of poverty, zoonotic and human diseases (especially malaria
and HIV/AIDS), childhood malnutrition, and maternal mortality,
as well as poor access to healthcare. Climate change has
resulted in drought conditions, placing more pressure on the
existing challenge of access to clean water for people reliant
on agriculture and cattle farming.