The Dalitso Project
July 2017
7/21/2017
Hi all
As many of you will be aware a team of 7 have recently returned from Malawi. This proved to be a very emotional trip full of highs and lows. The trip started with some time spent at our partner Aquaid Lifeline’s headquarters and involved lots of admin and meetings as well as lots of loom band making! Unfortunately, during this week Lucy Kawinjo- the headmistress at the Aquaid Namisu school, was taken into hospital and diagnosed with cervical cancer, having spent more than one year complaining of abdominal pain. This brave woman had continued working right up until her diagnosis but unfortunately, her diagnosis came far too late for any operative or therapeutic measures. We were informed that Lucy was under palliative care and whilst we hoped and prayed for a miracle for our dear friend, Lucy sadly passed away a few days later. This is a huge blow to Aquaid, to each of us as individuals and to many from the Dalitso project who have visited Malawi over the last 10 years. Lucy leaves behind a very young family whom she loved dearly and will be missed by all of her own and adopted children. This is unfortunately yet another example of the disappointingly poor standards of diagnostic medicine and the poor treatment options. Lucy had been admitted to the main hospital for the whole of the south of Malawi and yet the hospital had only Paracetamol to offer her as a palliative pain killer. We were forced to buy stronger painkillers for Lucy from a local private pharmacy and still could only access Tramadol. I want to extend our deepest condolences from the Dalitso project to all of Lucy’s family and friends. I personally will greatly miss this beautiful, gentle lady. On the same day that Lucy died we took to a local private hospital Mirriam – the founder of the Dawn Centre (a home for disabled children run by Aquaid). Mirriam’s son has some disabilities and because of this Mirriam had developed a great passion for working with children with disabilities and their families in order to promote their education and independence. This is quite revolutionary for a woman who had rarely left her rural village, in a country where disabilities particularly any impairment of mental faculties is fundamentally ignored and hidden. In Malawi, children with disabilities have very poor access to education, jobs and opportunities. Mirriam was heavily pregnant with her third child and had begun to have some severe abdominal pains. On admission to the private hospital, we were told that she was not in labour and that instead she was experiencing ‘normal’ pain for someone who is heavily pregnant. Whilst this was questioned, we left Mirriam in the faith that the medical professionals at this hospital would take care of Mirriam and we proceeded to our centre at Thyolo. It was therefore, with great devastation that we learned 2 days later that Mirriam Pharaoh, founder, visionary and inspiration had died in childbirth. To this day, we are unsure of the exact cause of her death. It seems that due to the prolonged pain, the medical staff attempted to induce labour and somehow Mirriam then collapsed. It would seem that the staff did not then realise that there was a chance to save the baby’s life and so did not attempt to rescue the baby, who then subsequently died. I cannot find it in me to blame the very inexperienced and under qualified staff. However, it is so painful that such needless deaths should occur when a little knowledge and expertise may well have saved both Mother and baby’s life. Again thoughts and prayers are with all of Mirriam’s family and adoptive children at the Dawn Centre. As a Physiotherapist, with some medical knowledge, it is so hard in these situations not to feel a sense of regret, wishing that I knew more or could have done more for each of these dear women. I had attempted to get a blood transfusion for Lucy Kawinjo through contacts at the hospital but unfortunately there was no spare blood at the hospital. It is so hard not to wonder whether a direct donation could have been arranged. With Mirriam, could we have pushed for a caesarean section? Would that have been enough? It does however, emphasise the importance of choosing the correct staff to work at our own healthcare clinic at Kambilonjo. More to come on that later! The trip continued sombrely, however, with a week spent with our project at Thyolo. This was a great encouragement, as the centre is doing well with the children looking healthy and performing well at school. This year we have had a young new graduate teacher working with us every afternoon, whilst he awaited his government teaching position (which can take 1 year to 18 months after graduation to secure). The teacher (Dick) has been doing a fantastic job and the results of the children has notably improved. Dick has now secured a government posting in Mulanje which is very exciting for him, although notably, in Malawi, teachers teach for the first 6 months for no pay due to the financial pressures within the ministry of education, so Dick will have a tough first 6 months- although we have agreed to help him in thanks for his fantastic work. This year at Thyolo we rented some land Kambilonjo (our other centre- where crops grow much better), this has meant that we have been able to grow enough maize to feed all of our children for the Thyolo centre and will only need to buy maize for our relief program and buy vegetables and meat to go with the meals. This is a great help for the budget this year, especially with the huge rates of inflation causing significant increases in the cost of living in Malawi. We finished the trip off with a school trip to Mount Mulanje where the children were able to climb up the beautiful waterfall and practice their swimming skills. A good day was had by all even though we forgot the plates and cups in the minibuses which made for a very interesting picnic! During that week we were able to identify though our interviews two young sponsor children who needed a little more input. The first is a young standard 4 girl, Regina Wyson. Regina collapsed after receiving her present and was unresponsive for several minutes. On further questioning it became clear that this was happening daily. The centre staff had taken Regina to the hospital but they had been told that there was nothing concerning so usually just gave her a pillow and a cover during these episodes. Obviously, we didn’t agree with the doctors from the local hospital and so we took Regina to the main hospital in Blantyre where she was seen by specialists. It seems that Regina is having a very unusual type of seizure and is now undergoing extensive testing to work out how best to treat this. The second thing that we picked up from our interviews was regarding the eyesight of Vincent Likoswe. Vincent is a highly intelligent young lad. He was selected (in his end of primary school exams) to one of the top government schools in the country 2 years ago and is now in his second year of secondary school and has consistently been one of the top students in his class. When it came to reading his letter from his sponsor, we noticed that he was having to bring his eyes right up to the paper. On further questioning about this, we discovered that he had had problems with his sight since he was a small child and had never been able to read from a school blackboard, instead having to rely on listening to his teachers. We took Vincent to the eye hospital In Blantyre and got his eyes tested- it turns out that his sight is -14 in each eye! There were no glasses in Malawi at that prescription but we were able to order him glasses from abroad that we hope he will have in time for the new term starting! After the visit to Thyolo, we made our way to the centre at Kambilonjo, where we were able to see our new clinic building which is currently in use as a baby vaccination and screening program for the government. It is so exciting to finally see this healthcare facility in use and now that the staff housing is complete we are now at the stage of securing staff for the health centre. Once we have staff in place we can apply for a government assessment and once we have been cleared, we can open the clinic to its full capacity. As highlighted earlier though, we have seen the importance of taking this step as slowly as required in order to get the best staff. At Kambilonjo we also took the kids on a school trip but we went to one of the safari parks instead. We were really lucky to see lots and lots of elephants as well as hippos, water buffalo and impala. The kids were fascinated by these animals and especially by the monkeys that kept trying to steal our picnic! Kambilonjo had also had a student teacher- Eric working with them this year and have also employed a new nursery teacher. This has also had a really positive impact on the educational standards of the nursery/ school. Eric too unfortunately is having to leave us as he has finally been posted after nearly 2 years. He will begin work in September also and will hopefully begin receiving his government salary at the turn of the year. We also wish him all the best for the future. At both centres we managed to meet with each child and staff member individually to find out how best we can help each one and ensure that we are not missing any issues or potential problems. These were really helpful and will form the basis of lots of discussion for the management team! So overall, as always lots of need in the community and so much we could do! The management team will have hard decisions on how to spend our limited resources this year. Lots of positives in how the work is going forward coupled with the heartbreak that is life in a third world country like Malawi. Thanks again to all of you for all your continued support. The Dalitso project will be having a 10 year celebration on 10th September at the Dishlandtown street... we would love to have you all there to hear about what weve been doing, what we are planning to do and how else you can all be involved!
0 Comments
|
A catch up on all the latest happenings in Malawi
Archives
April 2020
Categories |