Thursday July 3, 2008Yesterday, our team was given the opportunity to host a free medical clinic in a village about 40 minutes outside of Maua. The village, Ndoleli (pronounced “DOH-LAY-LEE”), has a clinic that is run and maintained by the Maua Methodist Hospital. This clinic provides medical care for thousands of patients in the area. The clinic is open Monday through Friday, day and night, and charges a small fee for its services. The clinic is located on a 65 acre farm owned by the Methodist church of Kenya. It has been a place where people are allowed to camp, grow additional food, and store grain after harvest. When we pulled up to the main work area, a man was beating dried ears of maize on a table with slats to remove the individual kernels from the cobs. We helped him for approximately 5 minutes, which was all our arms would take. He does this work for 8-9 hours per day. This farm is in a major crisis because the well has run dry. A new well was paid for and the new contractor from outside Kenya started to drill the new well (cost approx. $20,000 - 1,240,000 ksh) but the bore collapsed behind the drill and he left with the money and the project uncompleted. The church is working to recover its losses and re-establish the farm as being a safe place in the community. Other parts of the grounds include a common granary, goat pens, a primary school, and storage for farmers to store their food during the off season. In America, $2000 barely covers an emergency room visit, and in Kenya, your generosity has provided hundreds of people the equivalent of an emergency room visit. Because of clinics like this, groups like ours, and giving like yours, people who are living with diseases that once proved fatal are living long and productive lives. Because of the contributions from supporters of this mission, our team was able to provide the services of the clinic to several hundred patients, free of charge. This free clinic provides people an opportunity to be seen by a doctor or medical officer (our version of a nurse practitioner), have medications prescribed, and have prescriptions filled…all in one place. The majority of the patients seen were children (three schools brought their students) and almost all of them needed deworming. The 2 other major diagnoses of patients were malaria, which is running rampant, and infections (open wounds).
In order to advertise the clinic, we put up a banner and when we got to town, we drove through, waving to the community members. Apparently, by sweeping the town, “parade style”, worked wonders for advertising. Within 15 minutes, there was a school of at least 75 children coming up the road to the clinic. 
Over the course of the day, we treated 426 patients, and would have treated at least another 100 if we had not run out of supplies. Our crew took turns registering people, photographing new insurance members (patients can purchase insurance for their own family for $30 a year – this insurance covers medical costs for their entire family for one year), filling prescriptions, visiting with patients, and making signs. (Bonnie packing medications into individualized packets for later dispensing) 
(Kate "being a pharmacist". She is packing medications into small plastic packages) 
(Sue, Jasmine and Maury helping pack medications in the children's pharmacy) 
(The prescription window, ready to go. After patients were seen by the doctors in small rooms, they went to the back of the building to hand their prescription - written on a piece of paper - to members of our team and to nurses to fill) 
(After about 15 minutes, the number of patients increased exponentially! Here is Paul helping to register some of the patients) 
(Some of the children, holding up their prescriptions to take to the pharmacy around back) 
(As the children waited to be registered, Reagan kept them busy singing and dancing.) 
(One of the three schools getting registered.) 
(Paul, Jim, and Sue help to register the patients.) 
(Wally visits with patients while Bill documents their stories) 
(Ann and Bill Savuto dispensing prescriptions at the adult pharmacy window) 
This clinic was not only beneficial to the community of Ndoleli, but to the members of the Oregon Mission Team as well. The hospitality and generosity of the hospital staff, as well as the patients seeking treatment, was awe-inspiring, and very much appreciated. Another integral part of the treatment of these patients is prayer. Three members of our team made hospital rounds with the hospital chaplain this morning. It is profound how much prayer affects people. Over the next 2 days, we will finish and dedicate the house, paint several covered walkways, and continue making rounds with the chaplains. Speaking of covered walkways, the rains have settled back in. After a week of mostly sunshine, we woke up this morning to the aftermath of a downpour. The covered walkways at the hospital are a relatively new, but important, addition. Several years ago, the hospital staff was asked what their number one priority for work teams would be, and they said covered walkways. This hospital consists of a series of separate buildings so these covered walkways enable the transport of patients from the surgical theatres to the different wards around the hospital. These covered walkways are such a small thing that makes such a big difference. Thank you for all of your words of encouragement. All messages will be delivered to the team this evening, so please, keep them coming.  I will leave you today with a photograph of a little boy that I took that I feel truly encompasses what our work here in Kenya is all about. Peace. 
Bonnie, Sue, Jim, Jasmine, Bill, Maury, Kate, Ann, Wally, Kathleen, and Paul
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). You can also see an article that Stanley asked me to write about the Free Clinic we provided in Ndoleli the other day. 