Planning is well underway for this trip. We have a team of 5 enthusiastic volunteers ready to go. The team of Tagisia, Corinna, Sue, Jan & Jan will be made up of four returning volunteers an one new person. There has been some serious fundraising efforts being made for the trip and any donations, however small, are greatly appreciated.

Our May mission saw our nursing volunteers Lyle, Deb, Carole, Juliemae, Carol, Kathy and Hannah along with helpers Kenny & Rob, heading back to Nakuru, Kenya for another busy trip. This was a very successful trip on all counts with clinics run at the women’s prison, Lake Turkana, the truck stop on the outskirts of Nakuru and the Mission In Action orphanage (MIA). We were able to help several hundred people. We also were able to follow up cases we had initiated on previous trips The women’s prison clinic began with worship on the Saturday and we returned on the Sunday for the clinic where we saw over one hundred women prisoners and their children with complaints ranging from the common cold to wounds, infections and chronic illness. The trip to Lake Turkana required 2 days of travelling over extremely rough terrain necessitating a 4WD bus and 2 drivers and armed guards for protection on the notoriously dangerous road that is known to be patrolled by bandits. When we finally arrived we spent two and a half days in this remote community seeing hundreds of people who normally have no access to health care - people literally walked for days [...]

Day 30: Sunday 11th November M.I.A. 1 clinic re-visited: Kathie survived her sleep-over in the “Big girls” room: with Kabibi, Fraha, Diana and Mercy. Lyle rang and gave us a “to-do list” in case we got bored J Spent the morning on chores: laundry, re-stocking the last of our medications, mud-hut cleaning before venturing over to assess one last time all 51 of the children at M.I.A. 1. The main-house was being mopped so we set up clinic in the cubby house as the children were all being supervised at play. It was certainly the most fun we’ve had at a clinic to date! The children were much better all round: a few still had fevers, coughs and colds, but chest & ear infections had cleared up. We’ve realised that before we leave we need to do an in-service with the carer’s to ensure that they know what is a normal temperature for the children and also to stop the practise of sharing the same medicine spoon/cup (which we've noticed). We also heard from Michele and Corinna: who’d been having quite an adventure; beginning with atrocious accommodation in Nairobi, arriving safely to Zanzibar however  their luggage didn't! So for the next two days, they will [...]

Day 20: Thursday 1st November: Today while Tagisia remained at MIA; to wash, cook, blog etc, the rest of the team experienced the horror & reality of a public hospital in a 3rd world country. Michele & Kathie were in the operating theatre where they observed practices that could only be described as akin to being out of the Crimean war! For instance; surgical instruments being handled by ungloved hands, a needle stick injury then the same needle being inserted into a patient, children being literally dumped into a cot and left post-operatively following a tonsillectomy, without any observations/monitoring. Corinna; being a wound specialist, on the other hand was taken to the burns unit, which she described as being a torture chamber. Appalling infected burns on patients who were subjected to daily dressings with minimal analgesia on board. Dressing trolleys being re-used and no basic hand-washing between patients. The list goes on! She spent 11/2 hours with one particular burns patient – a small boy- gently de-briding his burns while singing/lulling to him. He gradually stopped screaming and calmed down as he realized that she was out to hurt him. His mother later told Corinna that she was “from God”. [...]

Michelle and Tagisia remained at M.I.A. to update this blog, restock for the clinic this afternoon at the M.I.A. school (for the surrounding community) Meanwhile Corinna and Kathie went and took Esther to the E.N.T. clinic at P.G.H.......... Lyle...(I'll let Corinna and Kathie fill in this part of the blog in their own words for it was quite an adventure) Even though the afternoon clinic had only been advertised 24hours before, 54 patients from the nearby community, came through to be treated. One woman with a history of diabetes had a ulcerated toe that needed debridement and anti-biotic therapy. This was attended to by Corinna & Michelle. She will be followed up on monday by the Kenya Health team to see if there is any improvement, as she is high risk for osteomylittis. Otherwise, the other patients had; upper respiratory tract, eyes, ears, nose, skin infections and S.T.D.'s. One young boy had a deep laceration on his foot from a peice of wood apparently. It really needed stitches but had occured over 4 days before. A normal saline deep flush, antiseptic, clean dressings and antibiotics followed. He also will be reassessed monday afternoon to see if it is improving. Tomorrow [...]

What a L O N G day! It took practically all day to gain an appointment with the M.O.H. but in the end it was all worth it. After perusing our letter, he gave approval, with the conditions that we (1) provide 200shillings maximum per community health worker / refreshments for them (2) and that we negotiate with each district nurse coordinator for dates/number of C.H.W. etc.  We met with Zipporah (coordinator for the Berut region) and booked the Mogoon clinic for next Wednesday, with no delay. Zipporah had actually worked together with us earlier in the year when we ran a clinic at Berut, so she already knew what we were about as a organisation and wholly supported Kenya Health. However we came against a lot of  opposition when we met with Winnie (coordinator for Rhonda district; which incorporates Pondamali) so negotiations are on-going. We agreed to meet with her again tomorrow at 2pm, as she had 4 of her most difficult cases that she wanted us to assess, to see if Kenya Health could assist. Meanwhile, the rest of the team: Corinna, Cathie and Michele had been invited by Ivan to assess a "couple of wounds" at a [...]