HEALTH

New Water Tank at Kachere Health Centre
Up until now, Kachere Health Centre has managed without water. Previously, water has had to be collected from a local borehole but now, thanks to AVERT, the Thompson Taraz Charitable Trust (TTCF), and the District Health Office, a new borehole has been drilled, pipes have been plumbed in, electricity has been connected, and there is now a large water tank providing running water to the health centre. How on earth they managed before – we just take water for granted in the West.

New Permanent Nurse/Midwife Appointed
At long last, a permanent nurse/midwife has been appointed to Kachere Health Centre. She is Janet Nsang’ombe from the Matete trading centre, and she started work at the end of March 2007. The health centre has been without a permanent nurse for over two years, so we’re really pleased a permanent nurse has been found.

Drug Revolving Fund
In Matete, which is close to Mwaya, there is no access to medicines and, if you have malaria, are pregnant, or are ill, you have to walk 7km to Kachere. It was suggested that a drug dispensary could be set up at Matete. Jon, a volunteer from Wisconsin, has been liaising with Fletcher (who is a Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) counsellor) and between them they will be establishing a drug revolving fund project. Basically, RIPPLE Africa will pay for the training of 18 Malawian volunteers who will learn how to dispense basic medicines. RIPPLE Africa will then fund the purchase of the initial drug supplies, and these will be sold at a modest cost so that the project can be self-financing.

Malaria Survey
Malaria is a huge problem in our area, and there are many cases of people dying from cerebral malaria. In fact, only last year, Chief Chibunya, a local chief, died within three days of contracting the disease because he wasn’t able to get to the health centre in time. Young children under five years old are most at risk. Jon, our volunteer from Wisconsin, has been really keen to look into what can be done about this horrifying disease. It’s all very well for us when we visit because we take malaria prophylaxis and spray ourselves with insect repellent, but obviously the local people can’t do this. We also sleep under mosquito nets, but probably 60% of the local people do not own a mosquito net. Believe it or not, it’s really quite difficult to buy them in the shops. Sometimes large aid organisations supply subsidised nets via the health centres, but there are never enough and, because people have to buy them, they tend to chose to spend their money on food. We had told Jon about a DDT spraying programme in South Africa where they have sprayed the inside walls of all the houses in an area with DDT twice a year. This has reduced the incidence of malaria from 2,300 cases a month to 12. Jon was keen to take on this challenge and has been doing some local research. He is organising 17 Health Surveillance Assistants to carry out a survey and is hoping to raise money to fund an initial spraying programme, so watch this space.

Simplified Training Guide for Health Education
Georgina, a volunteer from the UK, is working on a simplified illustrated RIPPLE Africa health guide which will be produced in the local ChiTonga language and English. These guides can be easily understood and absorbed, unlike the current training guides which cover many pages and are rather boring, and they will be used in the HIV/AIDS Awareness and Health Education Campaign (see below).

Bicycle Ambulances
We were once sent a mailshot by Oxfam for bicycle ambulances in Malawi and we thought “what a great idea”. We’ve made some enquiries about these and have actually tested one, both as the “patient” and the cyclist. They are a brilliantly simple idea and, in many rural areas where it’s not too hilly, are the ideal solution to getting patients, particularly pregnant women, to the nearest health centre. Initially, we want to raise enough money to buy six bicycle ambulances at a cost of £150 each.

HIV/AIDS Awareness and Health Education Campaign
One of the things that the staff at Kachere Health Centre were wanting help with was to fund a training and awareness programme of basic, simple health education to Village Health Committees (VHCs). They were talking in terms of paying allowances to people to come to the training sessions, together with meals, drinks, etc. The whole project sounded very expensive as there are 42 VHCs representing 18,000 people in the Kachere Health Centre catchment area, so we decided to look at ways in which we could achieve the same results at a vastly reduced cost. We are pioneering simplified training sessions on Sundays at church services. This will mean that we’ll only need to pay for the cost of the trainers who will provide a 15-30 minute training and questions session on particular subjects (for example, malaria, HIV/AIDS, personal hygiene, etc). The content of these training sessions isn’t rocket science, and the most important thing is to get the main points across to the audience. We need about £500 to run this programme to cover all churches in the area for one year.