HIV children clinic will be enlarged.

This is the HIV children clinic in Soroti hospital. We come with all our children to this clinic. Before there was not really a good place for the children, the waiting room was a small dark corridor and the room where the doctor sat, was also the room where all the files were kept and often there were two doctors in the same room, sharing the same desk.

Together with the help of the Dutch Foundation "de Figurant" we were able to build a new clinic, and on this picture you see the opening in December 2009. At the right, my brother, (who is part of the Figurant), me, then Helen, Dr. Florence and her husband, Dr. Egwao.

The clinic is a real blessing and since the opening in 2009 there are more doctors and counsellors working in the clinic. There are now 5 days of clinics, there are more than 1600 patients registred, mostly children. And on Saturdays they started with children and youth meetings. I was very proud of the nice and cheerful waiting room, you see this picture at the right. We had some volunteers who painted the walls and my brother carried a play table with beets over from Holland. I think we are the only waiting room with a play table like this in Uganda.

But the place became too crowded, the rooms too few and they started to make two rooms out of one. You can see that the nice waiting room is now divided into two rooms, behind the wooden wall they take the blood samples from the patients. There is one room they divided into three rooms.

 

This is the reception area, where they take the names, weight , height etc. They get your file and you wait till the doctor calls you.

This week we went with our children to the doctor. We are with a big group, with 13 children. One by one they go into the doctors room and he checks them and asks if they have any complains. we do blood tests every 6 months.

Here we are all together in the room with Doctor Wandera, he is very gentle with the children, they like him.  

Then we go for the medicines. We always get for one month, after a month I go with the medical books and get new medicines. The children go once every three months to the clinic, unless there is a problem.

Why this story, yesterday we signed the contract with the builder who is going to build the second store on the clinic. The Figurant is going to help us again. We shared with the Figurant that the clinic is just getting too small, and is so much used and is facilitating so many patients. They came back with the message that we could go ahead, we believe that the funds will come in. So Simon and I went to the hospital authorities and to Dr. Florence and shared with them. They were so happy and thankful! Simon contacted several builders and had the building design made. Yesterday we signed and today the first bricks were delivered in he hospital. I am so glad that we can help in this way, it means more work for Simon, he is doing most of the running around, while I keep an eye on the finances and administration. It will be a big blessing to the community! I'll keep you updated from time to time how the building is going.