Siddalls in Kenya

February 5, 2012

Greetings to everyone in Canada and the United States. We have been busy with settling the boy into another school, some wonderful travel and the goal of creating a carpentry business/school among other adventures!
It has been a privilege to be able to offer some of my menial skills and experience in helping, I hope, a few people out in this country.
One of my most recent experiences was a tour of the Moi Teaching Hospital here in Eldoret. I was invited by a friend Eun Yong a social worker from the United States working with AMPATH. As a former social worker/mental health worker I took the opportunity to see first hand how a developing nations' health care operation works. I was invited to perform rounds with the team and saw all the wards from palliative to surgery. In Kenya when you come to a hospital for treatment you are not allowed to leave until you pay your bill. I witnessed beds that had three people per bed, where one is sick and two could leave but can not because they do not have the resources to pay. There is a recent law implemented where the State will pay the bill after proof of poverty and can take up to three months to process. The forms are filled out in Eldoret go to Nairobi' Ministry of Health then approved and sent back to Eldoret for release of said patient.
About half of the patients I saw in palliative care were AIDS related with the balance being TB and other such afflictions. The hospital did have a smaller ward where some teen ages and younger ones had a more quite environment to pass over.
The wards are segregated with men on one wing and women on the other. Family and friends, if available and can afford the travel costs, come to tend their own. Nurses are useless and appear to be burnt out or just do not care anymore. Many patients will lie in feces for many hours or days. Depends or sanitary items for women are non existent. Women with cervical cancers leak out onto the beds with infrequent care by the nurses. It is quite sad to see first hand however when I did stop to do bed side talks I ensured that I touched or rubbed my contact and the smiles warmed my soul.
At the time of my visit we had a woman die. Her name was Phyllis and I was volunteered by the team to identify the body at the morgue that afternoon. The process is that when an individual dies a piece of masking tape is attached to their forehead and their name and file number written on same. The body is transported to the morgue, the family is notified to claim the body. In this case EunYong informed me that the body would be picked up the following day, because this family could afford to pay the hospital bill, and requested that I and the team go to the morgue to identify Phyllis's body. We did so, but the some what disturbing thing was that in the morgue, due to lack of space, bodies are stacked up to six high on each tray awaiting pick up. When the doors were opened heads bob out. Quite sad. Phillis we did identify and have her cleaned up for presentation and pick up the following morning. Some bodies will remain in the morgue for quite some time because families can not afford to pay the deceased hospital bill.
On the positive side many improvements have been made over the twelve years AMPATH has been here with stories from the past I would rather not mention in this blog. I am amazed at how far they do stretch a dollar compared to our Canadian health care system.

When we traveled to Lake Baringo for a holiday we stopped by a school/foster home for deaf children. It was great! The children were warm and inviting, well nourished and happy. I took pictures of them and they were very excited to see themselves. We will print out and send same to Elizabeth (a friend who helps run the facility) to give to the children. One thing that was especially titillating was to watch the children interact with my boy Alex. It is a rare thing for black children to see white children of the same age, especially in this region.
As my beautiful wife Lori has mentioned above and with other pictures of the Lake area we had a rejuvenating weekend!
I have been focusing most of my time and attention on helping a young man named Patrick O'Mera from the U.S. Patrick is a recent graduate of engineering from Illinois and his wife Dr. O'Mera works with AMPATH. Patrick started a small 'seed' repair and maintenance business two years ago in Eldoret. I have come on board with him to help in training of his staff, setting up a work shop proper, consulting with him with the goal of fundraising to acquire capital assets (tools and equipment) and work with Red River Community Colleges' Carpentry department to start a formal school in the region based on their curriculum. Currently there is only one Poly Tech school that awards a certificate to graduates of their course. Unfortunately, the school does not have proper funding to purchase materials to develop the practical/apprenticeship skills required for the realities of working in the industry. I am currently working towards a mutual arrangement where they will test our students in exchange for practical hands on training for theirs. In Kenya the way of things is that one has to have a piece of paper to command a higher wage, but in most cases they have no practical experience. This runs the gamete from government to trades. One of my objectives is to have workers/students who can not only have the certificate but perform also. Teach a man to fish...

The secondary goal is to develop the capacity of the crews and the business/school to have the ability to work on the 25 AIDS/HIV sites in the region. The sites are being converted from triage to primary care. I have met with Dr. Joe Manlin, co-founder of AMPATH and his wife Sara Ellen and both think this is the right direction to go.
I have attached some pictures here to show some work to date. It has included the purchase of power tools (I think one calls it "in kind") and the conversion of a structure (formerly a chicken shed!) into a viable work shop. The power in Kenya is 240 vs our 110 so if you play with the power here you do not get a "tickle" as in Canada. You may get your heart stopped though! The shed now has hand made upper wood grills for security and air flow, upgrades on electrical, intitial shelving units being completed for secure tool storage and where the disaster wood pile is currently to have a iron wood drying rack and work benches constructed within the next month or so. The area that has a wood pile in the corner will eventually be housed in and become an office area. I hope to call on some of you for donations in the near future. From house parties to corporate I am confident we can get a viable, sustainable business/school up and running! The crew is pumped! We have four months of work lined up and the weather looks good. Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver your promise.