Report – Visit in 2011 (volunteer trip)
Nearly the whole party visited Kilema with a view to walking in the hills after the visit. Those of us who had visited Kibosho were impressed by the condition of the road for the first few km after leaving the tarmac of the Arusha Road, this however soon changed as the condition became increasingly rough. It is a journey worth making even if not to visit the hospital as the views from there are magnificent.
What we did first
We were greeted by Sister Clarissa, who was, unfortunately, unaware of our visit. She handed us over to another sister who took us on a tour of the hospital. It became increasingly apparent that a group of 16 is far too many to take round a hospital and most of the volunteers who were not immediately involved enjoyed the sun in the hospital garden for some of the visit.
At first glance
The hospital is well laid out and appears to be well run. They have male, female, obstetric and gaenological wards in addition to maternity and children’s wards and an out patient department. They see around 70 patients per day. There is also perform major surgery and have visits from an eye surgeon. The theatre is well laid out and reasonably well equipped; they do however need more sterile gloves and suture materials. On our trip round the hospital we were shocked to see that although we send up to date MIMS and BNF they were still using copies from 2003.
There also a lot of cases of intestinal worms and they asked us to send out albendazole. Inter Care does not routinely receive this and we would have to buy it.
The government supplies them with ARVs yet they do receive enough for their patients. At the moment they have 1,800 HIV positive patients and whilst the number is increasing it is now slowing down mainly due to extensive educational programmes. The government does not supply drugs for opportunistic infections and if able, patients pay for these.
They have an orphan support scheme which gives help to 210 orphans providing them with food and education (the word orphan often means a child who has lost one parent) many are orphans as a result of AIDS and are being cared for by grandparents or older siblings. The program encourages the children to remain within the community with family members and does home visits.
Final comments
We were then taken to the canteen and provided with lunch.
On saying goodbye to the hospital staff we were then taken to Marengu Falls which is a tourist attraction of the area.