The foyer of Eden Grove was filled with enthusiastic white-coated Pharmacy students on Wednesday (25 August), as RUPSA (Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 Pharmacy Students Association) carried out its annual Clinic Day. Held every year to celebrate Pharmacy Week, RUPSA sets up tables manned by its members where staff and Rhodes students can take a variety of health-related tests free of charge. This year the theme was “Good Health, Your Treasure”.
Each year a local charity is supported by the Clinic Day. This year the choice was Hospice, a fellow health-based organisation which relates directly to Pharmacy and which cares for the terminally ill. Visitors to the clinic were encouraged to make a donation, either of money or of anything which could be used at Hospice. The requests included gifts of old clothing, tinned and non-perishable food, toiletries and bed linen.
A variety of services was on offer at Eden Grove. Most popular appeared to be the Blood Typing table, which had a long queue of students snaking round it, waiting to have their fingers pricked and their blood type revealed to them. The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) gave their time to man this table, and will be returning to campus soon to run a Blood Donor day. Hopefully a large number of those students will be encouraged by the experience to become blood donors.
Other services included the Organ Donor Foundation and the Asthma Detection table, where visitors could test their lung capacity using peak flow meters. Tests for visual acuity and reflex reaction time were also available as was a test for colour blindness, consisting of multi-coloured plates with 'hidden' symbols. The test contains two plates which contain no hidden numbers or pathways for those who are not colour blind, but appear to do so for sufferers of the condition.
The well-stocked Information Table carried pamphlets on Women's Health, Diabetes Mellitus and Asthma among others, and also had information on how to dispose of unused or out of date medication which may still be taking up shelf space in your room or medicine cabinet. The safest way to get rid of these items is to hand them over to your pharmacist for disposal. On no account should they be flushed away or thrown out with the rubbish bags. These options present an environmental hazard, and traces of some medicines have been found to be present in the water supply and in soil.