Talking with Nurse Jeanny Caren Zapeta Rén in Sacbichol, Guatemala

Jeanny Caren Zapeta Rén is a public community health worker responsible for delivering primary health care in the rural municipality of Sacbichol, Guatemala. Each week, Jeanny travels to different communities (often on foot!) to deliver critical primary health services, including child malnutrition monitoring and prenatal visits. Since 2016, more than 1,450 health workers like Jeanny in the department of El Quiché have been trained and equipped with TulaHealth’s smartphone-based digital health system, which supports immediate communication and coordination. Most recently, Jeanny used the digital health system to participate in our 'microtraining' courses focusing on COVID-19 prevention, treatment, and management and COVID-19 and sexual and reproductive health.

We met with Jeanny online to ask about her experiences providing health care during the COVID-19 pandemic and her participation in the 'microtraining' courses:

"I was able to resolve several doubts that I had through this training [through my smartphone] on COVID-19. [This course] has helped me quite a bit, it has helped me quite a bit. … From what I have learned, I have also had this communication with my family. Thanks to all of this since the training, I also had a small talk with my family. I made them get to know what the disease is. The virus, more than anything, right? Both I and my family also learned a lot.

The [information] that I received in the training is the same that I have been speaking with my patients about, and what I am trying to help them understand. Because in the beginning, everyone was scared. Everyone was very [negatively] affected. They could not find a way out and they could not find the quality anywhere. Everyone was saying “we are going to die! We are all going to get the virus!” Because that is what happens when people do not understand. This is what happened; they begin to think that there will be many deaths, right? But with all of my previous knowledge and with the training I received, I was able to teach my patients, the people who came to the [health] centre, and those who I went to visit. They began to understand through these conversations …and now the community is calmer."