Habari gani everyone...

Today marked day four of this 21 day epic adventure. It was the first day of me volunteering in the clinic and I was really excited and nervous to see what it was all about. In the morning, two of the nurses from Canada left for their three hour trek to the Pipeline IDP Camp. It was sad to see them go.

My house Mama, Charity, took me to the Kabete Rehabilitation Clinic first thing in the morning after breakfast. It is not that far from my volunteer house, approximately a 25 min walk along the street side. The health center, as painted above the door, is directly across an all boys school called The Kabete Rehabilitation School. It is a school for troubled teenage boys who need correction before returning back home or to their communities.

The clinic opens at 830am and I arrived shortly after. There was only one nurse in the clinic when I got there and she was already seeing patients. Wednesday is Mom and Babes day, where the Mom's from the surrounding communities bring in their babies for weighing and immunizations/vaccinations. The vaccination schedule is nearly identical to that in Canada.

Shortly after arriving, I was formally given a tour of the tiny clinic. There were seven very small clinic rooms in a cement/concrete building. On the left side from front to back there was a dispensary room, a office room, the immunization and weighing room, and the drug room. On the right hand side from front to back was the doctors assessment room, a treatment room, a pre-natal assessment room for family planning and education, and the staff room at the end. All of these rooms are extremely small with severely outdated furniture and equipment.

At about 0930 after the first wave of Moms and Babes, the nurse had to open the doctors room and start assessing the patients as the doctor had not arrived. The line up at 0930 already consisted of 20 patients. The nurse began her physical assessment and prescribing treatments and medication to the patients. What an incredible work these nurses do. I was amazed at their knowledge base and how comfortable they were with prescribing antibiotic doses amongst other medications.

I began to help with the assessments while the nurse, Susan, began doing some of the paperwork involved. I would say that about half the patients spoke English well and the other half at least a few to no words. Many of the patients were Moms with kids 6 and under. The living conditions here are so poor that they undeveloped immune system is not strong enough to fight off infections.

Many of the cases today were upper respiratory tract infections in children due to all the dust and dirt they live amongst. Other common diagnoses today were gastroenteritis, stomach parasites, malaria, skin rashes, fungal infections and otitis media. The clinic is labeled Level 3, which means they have one medical officer (doctor) and nurses, who can prescribe basic medications like antibiotics, antimalarial medication, analgesics and typhoid medications. There is no lab or diagnostic capacity, nor do they do any labour deliveries.

I had a couple of really sad and interesting patients. One was a woman who came into the clinic after realizing she was pregnant. She had been living with a friend of hers when the house got broken into and the two of them were raped by a group of men. She became pregnant after this horrific incident and decided not to have an abortion. When the doctor asked why she didn't abort the pregnancy and if she would resent the child, the mother-to-be said, "no because this is what God had planned for me" and "this is a child of God". I almost started to cry in the clinic room. There is always a way for the people from Kenya to see light, especially through their religious beliefs.

Another patient was a woman who came into the clinic wondering if she could possibly be pregnant. She explained that she had been having abdominal pain for the last two weeks and feeling nauseated. Her husband and herself have been trying to conceive but have so far been unsuccessful. After she left the clinic with a script for a free pregnancy tests at one of the clinics, the doctor explain something to me that I found really interesting. He told me that when a man and woman marry in Kenya, they try to conceive within the first month of marriage. If the woman is unable to conceive after this month, the woman is considered a failure. This leads to the man finding sex else where, trying to have a baby with another woman. The husband does not leave his wife, just has many sexual encounters with other woman. The doctor explained that this then leads to the woman looking elsewhere for sex as well, and due to both their infidelity they bring HIV into the house hold.

After the long line up of patients came to an end, I left the clinic to meet some of the other volunteers at the Nairobi Childrens' Home. It is an orphanage for many kids where they live and go to school. Three of the volunteers in the house volunteer at this orphanage. I will post some pictures. I am going to take better pictures of the clinic et cetera.

Today is coming to an end. I will be back at the clinic tomorrow and Friday before having Saturday and Sunday to journey around Nairobi again. I am so happy to be here and finally helping out in the clinic. This is also such great experience for me and I am learning so much about health care, medicine, and Kenyan culture.

Nakupenda - love