Day 22 26th February

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 circumstances. There were a few inmates who we referred for further investigations ie one had poorly controlled Diabetes, other’s required: scans, xray, better management for hypertension etc.

Quite a few asked for family planning or STD treatment, with one inmate telling of how her husband regularly beat her while on conjugal visits, as she’d not been able to fall pregnant since their last child 6 years ago ? Lyle also had bought a thermos to help in the preparation of baby formula for the malnourished 9month baby, and organized for Rosemary to provide further formula as required.

Madame Rosemary (the second in charge) was pleased with the outcome of our clinic and assistance –for it was the first time she’d had contact with us, as she’d replaced the former head warden. Once back at M.I.A. Lyle took Phil out to visit Rafiki Memwa, while the rest of the team caught up with the Water Sanitation team: Nigel, Tiffany, Hopal, Cara and Nigel’s mum Helen, who’d all returned from their safari/adventure.