Farewelled Nigel + 4 early this morning, no time to mope as we still had two clinics to complete. Today’s was at Pondamali slum’s  -the largest slum area in Nakuru and a place Kenya Health has visited often to run clinic’s due to the large concentration of people living in abject poverty. Pastor Williams, who runs the school, welcomed us and Cyrus; a young youth leader had been busily registering patients for us since 8am! We’d antiscipated that this clinic would be especially busy as only Glenda, Gillian, Jenny, Rosemary and Tagisia remained but in all the day went very well with several referrals and follow-ups for further treatment/surgical operations made. Total of approx 400 patients were seen and the entire school received worm treatment. Common cases seen: chronic diahorea, dental caries, skin, ear, eye and chest infections, aches and pains associated with dehydration plus a few chronic leg ulcers. One young boy who looked miserable had a “dudu” ie insect in his ear that had made it’s dwelling there for some time. After his ear was effectively flushed out with normal saline the dudu was forced to make its home elsewhere J by the end of the clinic we [...]

Said goodbye early this morning to two more members: Nichole and Kathy (our mother and daughter team) as they headed back to Australia via Singapore. Slow start to our morning as all are weary, winding down in this last week. Went into town with Lyle and Martha as they were meeting up with Rosemary to finalise details for the last two clinics. Also at 3pm Rose and Ida needed to be picked up for an appointment with Dr Dowyer and then there was a SCAN meeting that Lyle had been invited to attend with Mr Gilani and some Rotarians. While this happened, the rest of the team shopped for: items to make up the last of the gift packs for the 29 inmates who’d missed out yesterday,  a few more groceries and souvenirs for family back home. It looks promising for Alex to be discharged from Kinjabi hospital tomorrow once the bill is finalized: 68,000sh approx. Nemo had a set-back today in her recovery, as they’d trialed her with a diary based formula and she reacted instantly. To date her hospitalization has cost 130,000sh. As for little Ida, the  Dr is pleased with her healing progress but is changing her [...]

Farewelled one member of our team: Sue Anderson as she left for Australia via Dubai. No time to be sad, for we’re off to the Women’s prison again, only this time to run medical clinic. Processing us through went smoothly and despite only having 2 interpreter’s to begin with, clinic began quickly, with some of the team set up in solitary room’s and the other’s in a common room, all heavily guarded. 3/4hour later the rest of our interpreter’s arrived so by 2pm our clinic was complete. In previous years we’d seen approx 170-200 inmates, however this year we had been told there were 77 inmates and 19 children. It didn’t take us long to realize however that this information was incorrect for the 180 gift packs we’d prepared 2 weeks earlier for the inmates and 20 packs for the children, had all run out. 29 inmates and 3 children had missed out, but we promised to return early the next morning with more, and some outstanding medications for 7 inmates that we’d run out of as well Phew! In hindsight, the inmates were in relatively good health with minor ailments were mostly stress related which is understandably under the [...]

Off to Nakuru Women’s prison we go, taking with us Anisha and her singing group and a number of youth from a local church to help run the program. Processing us through, took little time and we were received with many smiles. Lyle was the guest speaker and through Max his interpreter delivered a simple yet meaningful message to the women. Lyle also gave to the prison warden in charge baby formula with instructions of how to prepare it, for the 9month failure to thrive baby who belongs to one of the inmates. Apparently mum was unable to breastfeed and so the baby has been given diluted cows milk instead, consequently the baby was malnourished weighing little more than a 2month old. After lunch back in our huts in M.I.A. we went to the hospital to finally discharge Ida who’d been given a clean bill of health from the Dr’s. She and her mum were all smiles when we arrived and we noted that both were wearing some of the clothing we’d packed into their care package ? Dropping them both off to Anisha’s home, we waved goodbye amidst many “Asante’s” from Ida’s  very grateful young mother. The young lad [...]

Left 8am for Nyahururu, picking up Rosemary, two interpreters/community health workers and a local elder with professional pump bottles for the pesticide, to assist us today. Although the clinic was being run in a school only 60kms outside of Nakuru, due to the condition of the roads it took us 1.5hours to arrive there. It was a lovely surprise to see them all in readiness, basins filled with water, children who were affected by jiggers already lined up for treatment and the rest of the pupils in order of grade, awaiting assessment. While Lyle and Rosemary focused on kick-starting the jigger’s education program, Sue, Tagisia, Nichole and Kathy focused on worming the entire school, treating those with obvious skin infections ie ringworm and triaging those in need of clinical assessment and treatment. A relatively small clinic was required with approximately 70 people young and old – including teaching staff- who came and were treated. By 1.30pm all had been seen and clinic ended for the day, with Lyle organizing for the remainder of the medical supplies for the jiggers program to be appropriately stored at the school. Rosemary and Katherine would be in charge of following up the progress of [...]

After dropping off the van early to the mechanic’s we met up with the RACC (Rotary’s Water Sanitation Project team) as we’d been invited to join them today on their monthly visitation to one of the area’s benefiting from the project. Again another bumpy road trip took us out past Gilgil and we met two families who were only too happy to testify to the transformation that having a good, clean water source right at their home had done. It soon became apparent that this trip would be a day long excursion, so Lyle contacted Rosemary to represent Kenya Health at a Hospice –as we’d also been invited there today. Basically, each water tank costs 65,000 sh. Of this the group pays half in money, materials and labour while Rotary pays the other half. There are several stipulations ie must supply the materials, install a clean outside toilet with hand-washing facilities and plant 100 trees. It was both interesting and inspiring to see the resulting empowering of communities through this project. Future mission trips Kenya Health does will include health promotion to such community groups to further improve their quality of life. Met up with Ann-Marie while in town, which [...]