ElderByakabanda
The day Jjajja's blood pressure was caught
A grandfather who came for his granddaughter's check, and left with a reading that changed his routine.
Mzee Kato is 71. He farms bananas and coffee on a small plot in Byakabanda, and he has never been seriously ill in his life. He did not come to the outreach day for himself.
"I came because my granddaughter had a fever," he says. "The nurse tested her for malaria. Then she said, Mzee, sit down, let me check you too."
A number he did not expect
His blood pressure was high. Very high. The nurse checked it again ten minutes later, and it was still high. She explained, slowly and in Luganda, what the number meant and what a stroke is.
I felt fine. That is what she said is dangerous. You feel fine until you do not.
The nurse wrote the reading on a small card, which Mzee Kato now keeps in his shirt pocket, and referred him to the health centre. A MANCO volunteer from the Byakabanda Center visited him two weeks later to check he had gone.
What changed
He takes his tablets every morning now, with his tea. He has cut back on salt, mostly. When the outreach team returned, he came to the elder bench first and brought two friends.
"They laughed at me," he says. "Then they sat down."
