Bad roads....

Today we had to go back with Catherine to the Eye Hospital in Torroro. Normally you drive it in 2 hours, but nowadays it cost 4 hours, due to the bad roads. So we were on this road for 8 hours today!! You see on the two pictures left, big holes in the road, muddy and big puddles with water. This is the road where all the traffic drives on the way from Kenya to Sudan. So many big trucks and trailers.

For almost 2 years they are working on this road, but not much is improved, it is even more worse now.

We also took Joshua with us, he has a lot of problems with his eyes, I took him some time ago to the doctor in Soroti. he thought it was a bad allergy, but advised us to let the eye doctor look at him. So that we did, the bad road got  effects, Joshua got car sick and threw up in the car.

Here is Joshua being examened by the eye doctor. And it is a bad allergy, we got special eye drops for him, that is all what we can do. Catherine was also doing well, the problem she has, is still there, but they found out that it is a congential cause, and nothing with her brains or optic nerve ststem. That is also good news. She did very good with the examination and she was all over the place, greeting people, walking everywhere and on the picture she is very interested in the stool which can go up and down. We have to come back over 6 months. 

Work in process...1

In the Blog of May 1, I wrote about the HIV clinic in Soroti hospital. Together with the Dutch foundation "the Figurant" we are building the second floor on the clinic (which we also build in 2009). Today I had to be in the hospital for a test result of one of our bay's. The test proved that the baby (Charles) is HIV -. I was very happy with that, I always feel like celebrating after news like that. On the picture above you can see the walls growing.

At the back of the building the builders made stairs to carry all the building materials up. It is a very heavy job. All the bricks have to be carried up, and one brick weighs 5 kg. So you can imagine how many kgs, have been carried up. I decided to climb up as well, it was a bit scary, it was slippery and there was really nothing to grasp in case I would fall. At least we are on the hospital grounds, so there would be medical help, in case that...  

I have respect for these men, it is hard work and also hot, in the sun. Today it was mostly carrying materials and tomorrow they are going to build again. All the materials have to be bought by us. That is what Simon is doing. All the bricks, sand, cement are organised by Simon. And I do the payments! Simon knows many people and has many connections. So he calls a truck driver to bring 3 truck loads of sand, the guy does the work and comes to Amecet to collect the money. So it does go very organised.

Everything is done by hand and it is exciting to see the clinic growing. The doctors and the nurses are also very exciting about the new clinic!



Of course you have to eat when you work so hard. So there is a lady hired, who cooks the lunch for the builders. She cooks down there, on some big stones and wood. The men sit  around and eat, rest and go back to work!

P.S. I didn't fall, so no medical help was needed.

Two new arrivals in Amecet.

Today we had to make a lot of changes in Amecet. There was a boy coming, via the HIV clinic from the hospital. We do have empty beds for girls, but not for boys. So we had to move everybody around. The girls are now all in one big room and the empty girls room has become the boys room! Joseph was brought by his two uncles. The doctor from the clinic had told me by phone that Joseph was weak and malnourished. And indeed he is! Joseph is an orphan and lives with his uncle in the village. He is 11 years old and he only weighs 20 kg! My daughter Helen of 6 years,  is not very heavy and weighs 21 kg! Joseph has also TB and is taking medication for that, he is also taking ARVs. A sad weak boy, when he walks, he has to support himself, otherwise he might fall. I hope he will pick up and that we see the joy in his face again.

The schools have started again on Monday and all the children are back to school, except Mary Abait, who was operated last week and we had two other children who were sick, so they stayed home, but tomorrow they will go back to school. We also got a new baby girl in Amecet yesterday. Again a sad story, the baby was born at home, around midnight, the placenta didn't come out, the mother passed away because of the bleeding. The baby is called Sarah and she weight 2.7 kg. She is drinking, but not so much, so we feed her every two hours.

We also got the sad news that the mother of Nelson has died, she was to be buried today. Very sad for the family, at the other hand we expected it, she was so very, very sick. We pray that she has found her peace. Nelson is doing very well, he is moving all over the place, smiles a lot and eats very good,

I'll end with this funny picture. When we were moving beds around this morning and cleaning up cupboard's, sorting out clothes and creating space for the children, Helen found this ballet suit. She put it on and was dancing all over the place. It is a pity that there is nothing like a ballet school, she would do well there!  

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Abait is operated, a new baby and a dog trainer...

Mary Abait is operated today! She is 16 years old and had a very big hernia near her belly button. It was really a bit embarrassing for her, you could see it sticking out trough her clothes. So we asked her if she would like to get an operation. She wanted it, so Meri and I took her to the clinic next door with the question if Dr. Engulu could do this operation. And that was possible, so this morning Mary Abait went, together with Meri to the neighbours. Meri was allowed to be in the operation room and everything went well. She had to stay in the clinic this day, but when she came out of the anesthetics, she got visitors, her friends wanted to see her. She came back to Amecet at around 6 pm. She is now sleeping and she is doing well and very excited that the operation is done and that her hernia is repaired. 

After I brought Meri and Abait to the clinic, a new baby girl arrived in Amect. The baby was not yet 2 days old. The story was so sad, her mother went into labour on Tuesday evening. They took the mother on a motor bike to the health centre. But the baby didn't wait, and the baby was born on the way. It was dark and it was raining, the baby was born on the road and the mother died there on the road because of excessive bleeding. She was buried yesterday. The baby was fed with only some sugar water and an old lady tied the cord with some pieces of cloth. I took the baby, Benna, directly to Dr. Engulu (who just finished Abait's operation) and they retied the cord and put the baby on antibiotics, because of the dirty environment where the baby was born. She is drinking very good, she was dehydrated. We pray that she will pick up and be a blessing to her father in the future.

While this was all going on, we had a dog trainer working in the compound with our dogs. We have had problems with our dogs, one of them (the one here at the left) suddenly turned on one of our other dogs. And that dog was really wounded and we had to get the Veterinarian doctor for her. he advised us to get this dog trainer involved, because we have beatiful dogs, but they are very wild.

The two dogs could not stay together in the doghouse anymore, because that was directly war. The dog trainer got every dog (also my two puppies) out and worked with them for five hours and now are all the dogs together again in their dog house. I am amazed what he did today, the trainer will teach them to obey, to work together and to be better watch dogs. He made a great start today!!

 

Who says that boys can't jump????

Yesterday many cars drove into our compound and lots of men and some ladies came to visit Amecet. The Ministry of Gender had a workshop for all the officers from the Probation offices in the North East of Uganda. The workshop was all about assessing children and baby homes. There are a lot of  children  homes in Uganda, often sponsored by foreign countries. there are a number of homes which are not really operating good and some are abusing the funds. So after the teaching they came to make an assessment of Amecet. I was a bit nervous , they came with so many! Some from Kampala, from the Ministry of Gender, they had many questions and inspected the house and also outside, around the house. many questions about the children, protocols, finances, reporting, staff etc. they were good questions and they also wanted to see our files and office. Simon and I answered as good as we could. And they were satisfied, they complimented us about the home and how we operate. We have to improve in some area's, like reporting and protocols. But is was a very good visit and Simon and I have a good feeling about it. So there is no reason to be nervous!

It is still holiday, but the children are really enjoying themselves. At the moment they are learning to skip robe. And also the boys are enjoying it so much! It is so good to see the joy and the fun on their faces. They are happy!

Meri (our Canadian nurse) and I took Nelson for his second HIV test. In my last blog I wrote how Nelson came into Amecet. Nelson has been very sick during the weekend, he was on IV drip because of a bad malaria.

He took the blood test very well, on Sunday when they tried to put the cannula in, they had to try many times and after trying his arms, hands they succeeded in the foot. Today he didn't seem to have a trauma from it. But the test came out negative!!!! Nelson is free of HIV, we are very happy with this and so is he!!!

A welcome for Nelson in Amecet

Simon went today with some of the elder children to the village, to visit their homes. It is important that the children keep that contact with their families and it is always an encouragement for the families to see the children doing so well. While they were visiting a family of one of our children, he was called to come to the home of the neighbours, where a drama was going on. The mother was very sick, she is HIV+, tested, but she denied completely the result of the test. She refused the ARV's, and got sicker and sicker. The father already died earlier, also without the ARV medicines, which slows down the growth of the HIV virus and helps the immunity of the body to get stronger.

The mother was laying on a sack, under the tree, because of the visitors, she was carried to sit (!) against the home. She was mostly unconscious and there was no reaction from her. The family tried to give her some glucose water, she is not eating any more, she is in her last stage of AIDS. There are 8 children and they asked help for the youngest child, a little boy of 1 year and 5 months.He looked okay, not malnourished or with skin rashes. 

You see him here on the picture with his 14 year old sister. This girl is looking after him and she looks after the mother as well. There are two older brothers, but the work is mostly done by the girls. The boy had no medical records, not even an immunization card, but they said there was a blood test done, but there was no result. We decided that we would take the boy to Amecet, to get him tested and maybe put on medicines and it would really help the sister, to have than only the mother to care for. When they tried to talk to the mother about bringing the baby to Amecet, there was no response. The grandfather was then brought in to sign our papers and also the local counsellor was asked to come and sign the papers.

It makes me so sad, that in a country like Uganda, where there is so much openness and teaching about HIV and AIDS, people just denied their status, there are free medicines for everyone and still people die like this mother, somewhere deep in the village. Nelson is the name of the baby, he was brought to Amecet, he looked around with big eyes, but he likes the food and the milk. When it was almost evening he developed a high fever, we bathed him and gave him medicines. Tomorrow we have to go for tests. But we welcome him into Amecet. We pray for the family in the village, where the mother is dying, that God helps the family to cope with the situation.

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.