Second Day of Clinic

When the team arrived at the clinic on Tuesday morning a mother in the maternity ward had just delivered a beautiful baby girl assisted by Philip, the new Clinical Officer, and Eliza, the midwife. The mother had been at the clinic since Monday morning. Everything went well. Those donors who contributed to the delivery beds get special mention today!

Also a little girl came today who last year was about 6 months old and then was in a dire condition, not getting nearly enough milk and very much at risk; Paul and Debbie bought formula for her and made sure that she was getting it. This year she is a very chubby bouncy little girl, full of life, who might otherwise not have survived.

Today is the pre-natal clinic and there were 16 mothers, several of them waiting when the team arrived. Everyone was weighed and measured and hopefully all will keep coming back regularly.

In total 55 patients today, plus a full house in the inpatient department and the 16 expectant mothers. A full and blessed day! Lynda was run off her feet dispensing and dashing between the two buildings, still finding time to show God’s love to everyone she encounters.

Anna and I stayed in Fort Portal for meetings with churches and NGOs, following up on contacts made last year and trying to make new connections. We first met with the Church of Uganda`s Diocesan Health and Social Coordinator who advises health clinics in the Diocese and reviews their performance. Their report on Rambia was very helpful and flagged areas needing improvement. One of our challenges is that we want to fix everything but know that we can’t possibly do it in 2 weeks – even if we understood all the cultural issues which we certainly don’t. Time for the Serenity Prayer again.

Then we met with the Director of HEWASA (Health Through Water and Sanitation), an NGO administered by the Fort Portal Catholic Diocese. They deliver water and sanitation projects which address not only the required physical infrastructure but also the community participation, education and ownership aspects of such projects. The community around Rambia had a typhoid outbreak some months back so evidently there is a need for a secure and regular provision of clean water in the area. Even the water from the standpipe at the Clinic is intermittent. If we could organize a community request and funding of about $5,000 they would conduct a needs assessment and prepare a project proposal for implementation which Rambia could manage. Clean water is such a basic need, we would like to partner with Rambia to get this done if we can find the funds.

Our next stop was with a visiting Professor from the UK`s University of Warwick who has done a lot of work in the area installing micro-hydro projects and rain water collection systems. It seems that the micro-hydro project he and his students installed last year near Rambia needed repair because of erosion of the turbine by sand in the water. It is working again but Rambia would benefit from supplementing the new water supply with a rainwater collection system, something else for Anna to think about.

On our way back to Fort Portal we checked in with an orphanage to discuss how we could find a home for the abandoned girl at the clinic. Seems that the first step is to register her with the Probation Officer so we need to organize that.

After dinner Debbie led us in devotions with a theme of seeing God’s presence in even the small things and events of the day.