Amonie Outreach Clinic

Myself and Christina had the opportunity to go to a Amonie, one of the Presbyterian Health Clinic's outreach centres that was located in the center of multiple villages. The location's accessibility allowed for easier access to those in the surrounding villages. We learned that the staff at this clinic are quite dedicated to their work as they do not take breaks, they work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Their days off are few and far between and not scheduled into a "rotation".  They arrange rides into town when able and when they can be absent from the clinic.  We found the staff members to be devoted and caring towards their patients and they were eager to teach and help us learn about their mission at the clinic. This is something we rarely see at home! The clinic was quite small but had six different sections of expertise. The six sections included casualty, maternity, dispensary (aka pharmacy), two gender specific lay in rooms, records,and consult.

Once a month the clinic hosts a Child Welfare Clinic and we were fortunate enough to be arriving on this day. At the clinic babies are weighed and the information is documented and monitored on a growth and development chart, as well as routine vaccinations. On our outreach day 139 babes with mothers arrived at this very small clinic for their checkups. We will admit that we felt quite overwhelmed with the noise, heat, and confined space, but we pushed through it! Christina was in charge of weights and documentation. We rather liked this station as the scale looks like one you may find in a produce section back home. While Christina assessed weights and growth Kyla helped to review vaccination history, documented history of vaccines for use of statistics, and confirmed vaccine scheduling. After these two stations we were both able to assist with the baby vaccinations. Once vaccinations were finished everyone was able to go home.   We pushed through from 0900-1400 and it was nice to hear that the clinic was done early that day as they had the extra help.

Something that caught our attention, at both clinics we have been to so far, is that family planning is offered.    Ladies are educated on birth control options and given a choice on whether or not this is something they would like to take part in. The clinic works very hard to try to include the husbands as well. They have seen success with this approach as birth rates have decreased. This is still a work in progress as it can often be difficult to incorporate the husbands into care or they deny the wife access to this care. The hope is with more education to both males and females there will be a further understanding to the importance of family planning. Overall we had a wonderful learning experience and are very pleased with the work that is being done. We are looking forward to the next adventure!
Kyla and Christina