Hope Where Life Seems Hopeless

To my Friends and Colleagues:
This is a story of a clinic….a clinic in the rural town of Soroti, in sub-Saharan, Uganda, Africa.  This clinic needs your support to continue bringing lifesaving medical aid, and maternity care to 10,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs).  The IDPs have taken refuge around Soroti after fleeing from their villages in northern Uganda after savage attacks by the rebel group, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and the Karamajong cattle warriors.

The camps are acres of squalid overcrowded mud huts where poverty and lack of services make life unbearably difficult. The IDPs are proud people who have lost everything – their homes and their belongings were burned to the ground, their loved ones were massacred, their older children were kidnapped to become child soldiers and sex slaves.  Yet they remain hopeful for a brighter future.  Their attempts to make a living are hampered by lack of basic necessities such as nutritious food, clean water, proper shelter and medicine.

More than 80 percent are women and young children as many of the men were killed in the brutal LRA raids.  In the camps, preventable illnesses such as malnutrition, diarrhea, and malaria are too often fatal – malaria alone kills 2,500 children ages five and younger every day in sub-Saharan Africa ….a bigger killer than AIDS.

In the fall of 2004, three Canadian nurses and one US doctor, saw the IDP’s desperate need for primary healthcare and founded this clinic.  The clinic opened March 2005, with a small and dedicated local staff overseen by the original founders.

An extensive needs assessment of the IDPs was undertaken in 2006 and identified maternal health services as a desperate need.  As a result, the International Midwife Assistance  (www.midwifeassist.org ) was invited to join the clinic.  IMA, employed the first midwife, providing prenatal care and initiated a 24 hour birthing center. Until then the IDP women were part of the 42 percent worldwide who give birth without a trained attendant – which the WHO has identified as a social inequality that causes needless maternal and infant death, every day.

The IDPs, are being encouraged to return home, but there is nothing left where they used to live.  They are choosing to relocate to outlying districts instead, fearing further attacks from the Karamajong if they return to their villages further north.  They are living with fewer resources in these new remote sites and this new reality brings greater poverty, more illness and more vulnerability to violence

In response, the clinic established a weekly outreach program to the districts.  A medical team piles into a rented vehicle, and drives one to two hours over rutted dusty roads to bring medicines and a portable lab to the IDPs . They wait hours in the hot Ugandan sun for these lifesaving measures.  The team triages the IDPs and identifies the critically ill…..those who, if left another week, would not survive.  Approximately 860 receive treatment every month during outreach…255 of whom are children, age five and younger.

In Aug 2008 IMA took over responsibility for the entire clinic and helped the clinic incorporate as an independent Ugandan nonprofit under the name of the Teso Safe Motherhood Project (TSMP) The clinic now offers primary care medical services, prenatal care, a 24–hour birth center, family planning, vaccinations, food supplements, malaria testing and treatment, disease prevention, HIV/Aids treatment and counseling, and a pharmacy.  The staff has also grown into a very competent team of 17 Ugandan employees, overseen by IMA. In 2009 total patients seen was 30,370.  Nearly 20,000 (65%) were treated for malaria, and more than one half of the patients were children, 15 and younger.

The good news is that the clinic has grown into an extremely successful medical center.  The reality is that the clinic’s needs are great. I would ask that you see the challenging times we are all experiencing at the moment as a call to help those in greatest distress.   Please believe me when I say that even the smallest donation makes a huge difference in Soroti.

The programs mentioned above have grown and diversified according to need.  Your contribution would ensure that each patient would receive the care that would be most beneficial, whether it be a safe place to give birth, a net to prevent malaria, food, family planning, vaccinations, counseling or treatment of disease.  The cost of running the clinic for one month is $20,000 – $8 US per patient to receive high quality care, by professional staff.

To donate, please make your cheque payable to Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief   (www.cpar.ca ) CPAR is a charitable organization (#11883 5230  RR0001) and issues tax receipts for donations of $10 or more.

Please ensure that you write “For Soroti Clinic - JC “on the memo line for the cheque (to identify your donation as part of my fundraising effort) send your cheque   1. To me:  J CLAYTON, BOX 4, LIONS BAY, B.C. Canada, V0N 2E0 (all information is confidential) or 2. directly to CPAR at 1425 Bloor Street, West, Toronto, Ontario M6P 3L6.In this case, please send me an email re: your donation. I will notify CPAR to expect it.
Yours very truly,

Jacquie Clayton, RN. BSn  
 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

NB: In NOV/Dec of 2008, I spent 2 months in Soroti, and worked with the staff at TSMP as a volunteer. I was to oversee the clinic, and as a special project, did initiate an immunization program for the children and pregnant women, both in the clinic and at outreach.  I can attest to the fact that the people are very sick, and very grateful, for any help. The clinic is very efficiently run, and the staff very dedicated, and competent. It was a privilege to have been part of the team for this very worthwhile and sustainable cause. I will return Nov/Dec of this year.

It may be of interest to Lions Bay residents, that my experiences in Africa started with the volunteer work that began in Guatemala, with HANDS, (which are based here in Lions Bay) and which are interested in all health issues for those who are so marginalized.  The possibilities for their involvement in other 3rd world countries might be something that they possibly would like to explore in the future.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

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