As Happy as can Bee!

The Logre Team

Working at the Logre Catholic Health Center gave us nothing but good feelings. Logre is just outside of a small town called Kongo, about 45 minutes outside of Bolga.  This clinic is run beautifully by the dedicated and hard working staff. Each day they provide a variety of health care services, some of which include: antenatal clinics, child welfare clinics, mental health assessments, and HIV treatment and drug dispensary. The outpatient department and maternity ward are also open around the clock for walk ins and routine community care. This clinic a perfect example of primary and preventative health care and we could learn a lot from them. 

 While working here for a few days we learned how to provide necessary nursing care with minimal resources available. For example prenatal assessments without ultrasound or fetal doppler.

In simple terms, this clinic showed us the true authenticity of nursing practice by demonstrating to us that nursing is an art and that the most important tools we need are knowledge, our hands and our hearts. 

Mama Bee with Paige

The staff here were very welcoming and were always open to hearing how our services differ from their's. One staff member in particular will forever be in our hearts. Beatrice, also know as Mama Bee, is the senior midwife and one of the clinic supervisors. She radiates passion for what she does. Mama Bee lives behind the clinic and works around the clock even when the clinic is closed. While this may seem exhausting to some, Mama Bee never stops smiling or giggling. She runs the HIV clinic every Friday. There is a huge stigma in Africa around HIV and AIDS where many individuals are shunned from their families, communities and villages. Many do not come to the clinic because they are afraid someone will stigmatize them. Mama Bee will hand deliver the medications to these individuals out in the community or they will come to her house late at night when no one is around. In her own words "if I do not do this these people will die". She will hand deliver these medications by foot! When the HIV medication supply is low she will go to the pharmacy and buy more from her own pocket. She does not get reimbursed and does it out of the goodness of her heart. She is a very influential nurse to learn from and her passion is contagious. 

Mama Bee Schooling Us

Thank you Logre for a fantastic experience!

~Alyssa Sand, Paige Bunbury, Melanie Hameluck and Madison Phemister