Urban Clinics
RADEM were running a clinic in the city of Gambela in Congo. There are very limited health facilities in Gamebla and this clinic was a vital resource to the 11,000 people living in the area. In 2004 DWW agreed to pay the rent on the building housing the clinic so RADEM’s financial resources could be used to help ensure the clinic was finacially secure and sustaimable. It was clear to us from very early on that the health service RADEM’s were providing was invaluable.
The clinic in Gambela is a maternity clinic with ante-natal, intra-partum and post-natal care. An estimated 510 women out of every 100,000 die during childbirth in the Congo, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). The number of women diying is due to a number of reasons including the lack of community training on safe maternal and neo natal care, poor quality of care and post partum depression.
Hopsitals and clinics in the Congo are inadequately equipped and the level of obsteric care is very limited. It has facilities for a small number of in-patient maternal and child cases and does see general out-patient cases. Vaccination programmes are run through the clinic and trainees from the local medical school also attend for teaching. In 2009, 3179 patients were treated at the clinic and 633 babies were delivered.Doctors Worldwide has commited to working long term with RADEM and providing secure funding for the clinic.
RADEM wanted to expand the services they could offer the poor. DWW provided funds to build a 40 bed hospital in Hewa Bora, a new area on the outskirts of the city. Hewa Bora is home to some of the poorest famalies in the area, most live in one or two bedroom shacks and have no electricity of water supplies. The infastructure around Hewa Bora is poor, there roads are of very poor quality and poverty is visable.
RADEM in partnership with DWW have built a two block hospital with one surgical and one maternity wing. The hospital has a small laboratory and an its own pharmacy.
DWW along with another British charity provided the funds for to build the laboratory and stock the hospital with surgical and maternity equipment.
The has project that has evolved over a number of years. The Spanish Red Cross built a deep water well on the site which is also used by the surrounding communities. The population in Hewa Bora has steadily incereaased and slowly but surely the infrastructure has improved. Many homes now have access to electricity. There is a hospital in the area and a mini-bus service operates to and from town. Shops have been built and markets have been established in the surrounding area.
There has been a steady increase in the number of people coming to the hospital for treatment. In 2009, 3899 patients were treated and 581 babies were born, additionally 121 non complex operations were carried out. The next stage of the hospital evolution is to improve diagnostics at the centre with Ultrasound and x-ray facilities and to start expanding the surgical services further. Kamina maternity
Kamina town with a population of 115,000 is 700 km north of Lubumbashi and is a very poor part of Katanga province. DWW opened a maternity clinic in November 2005 providing essential ante and post natal care. In 2009, 818 patients had been treated and 266 babies delivered. Being a larger town this has been included as an urban rather than a rural clinic.
