"All the time we had something to do; medicine is a mixture of everything in this place," says Michal, one of the group of Czech medical students who spent August in the Kenyan village Itibo, the place where the humanitarian organization ADRA has been realizing the project "Reconstruction of the policlinic and maternity" since 2006. Nowadays the policlinic serves 200.000 people from the wide neighborhood.
The Czech students came to Kenya to get in touch with medication in difficult conditions and with 'exotic' diseases. "We had to deal with malaria, typhus or AIDS," continues Michal, "and we had to dress lots of wounds because the branches of tea plants are surprisingly sharp and children fall on it surprisingly often. And we also cleaned lots of infected injuries because native people tend to let their wounds rot and come to us as late as the antibiotics are needed. From time to time there was something serious so once in two days in average we took a patient to the local hospital. For example I remember a pregnant girl in sixth month, she was in pain and she had been bleeding for a month before she came to us."
Besides professional abilities the students gained personal experience of living in African society (from witnessing the situation in families to experiencing the African bureaucracy).
This stay of Czech medics was only the first part of the new phase of the project „Reconstruction of policlinic and maternity". Other groups of students should follow to deepen the cooperation and exchange between the policlinic in Itibo and Czech doctors, for both sides to benefit and learn from each other.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
A view of the MV Faina, a Belize-flagged cargo ship owned and operated by Kaalybe Shipping Ukraine, as observed by the crew of USS Howard September 25, 2008, in this handout ...
