[Phanuel Mabbola]

Firstly may I take this opportunity to thank the Lord For almighty for the privilege to be be given a chance to express my opinion on the challenges which most of the stroke survivors are faced with in Zambia.1.  The first thing I would like to put across is that challanges are many in our country as you may be aware that Zambia is still a developing country, and most of the people are very poor about 90% of the population are living in poverty. That is biggest challange, as a result it is not easy to our the patients to access quality healthy attention because most of the time patients in most of the parts of the country can’t reach the health facility in time when they need medical attention there is always a delaye in reaching the health care facility caused by lucky of the means to get to the hospital. 2. The health care facilities are very overwhelmed with too many patients which but with few health workers which could the patients not to be seen or attended to in time even when there they might have reached in time. There are no  are no stroke units in our hospital, as a result there are no proper follow ups of patients after discharge from the hospital, there is no financial support for to enable the survivors to help them attend physiotherapy sessions and most of stroke survivors stop attending the sessions before time.There is no networking with the stroke survivors. There is no platform of any kind.Even the awareness there is nothing done yet. Challanges are many I can’t state them all on this platform due to time.Now about me and the National Stroke Aid, iam Phanuel Mabbola the founder member of the National Stroke Aid, I have been helping out with stroke survivors rehabilitation since the year 2007 and I have seen their struggles and most of them are neglected even by their own family membersi guys because they lose hope on the way due to the nature of the ailment. And lack of understanding and the knowlesge on what could be done.The formation of National Stroke Aid is aimed at trying to closing up the gap to help out the missing link between the stroke survivors and the family and the community, the health care system and the patients relationship and reaching out to every one to join hands in fighting against stroke and it’s courses by promotion healthy lifestyle.We are also aiming at providing quality rehabilitation programmes to the survivors and lobby for their support from different stake holders.National stroke aid is less than two years in existence from the time it was registerd and it is registered minister of home affairs with the register of societies as a non profit making organisation and also integrated with ministry of health of the republic of Zambian. National Stroke Aid is a member of World Stroke Organisation. As a starting non profit organisation working on sacrifice and stand alone we have a lot of challanges our goverment has no capacity to support any  NGOs financially, and we are still struggling to set our base as it is a new concept we depend on welwisheres  support. Feel free to stage with us in this great work we need everyone’s support we need your support contact this number for donations support and and more information +260 977 554 332 whatsapp line kindly regards.Phanuel Mabbola National Stroke AidCoodnator, Zambia.