Extension of Babadogo Catholic Church HIV/AIDS Centre and Health Clinic

Project location: Kenya, Nairobi
Project start date: April 2009 - Project end date: April 2010
Project number: 2009-07
Beneficiary: APURIMAC ONLUS

Project links:

National statistics given by WHO, UN and Kenyan Ministry of Health show us that the estimated number of people living with HIV-AIDS, in a range of 0-49 years old, is almost 1.560.000. This shocking data, added with the correspondent information on people spread by TBC (with an incidence of 384 on 100.000 people, in 2006), proves that fighting these terrible diseases has to be the first goal to achieve. Moreover, rural areas appear as the more stricken zones of the entire country. Poverty and Disease are, consequently, the scourges of rural population, who cannot survive and live without adequate sanitarian and assistance structures. As declared by WHO, Kenya presents a tragic scene, concerning HIV-AIDS and TBC prevention and care. Million of US $ should be invested by national authorities, international organization or non governmental actors with the will of eradicate such diseases. Nowadays, HIV-AIDS represent the first cause of death in Kenyan population; TBC the fourth. The percentage of women and children hit by such illnesses exceeds the 40%. The huge spectrum of HIV-AIDS and TBC has to be reduced and, finally, eliminated. A people without youth will be a society without future.

The Babadogo Catholic Church HIV/AIDS program, started in October 2004, is one of the main projects promoted and developed by Apurimac in the African scenario. The program focuses on a variety of services provided through volunteer community health care workers, and is still supplied by the Babadogo Catholic Church and the local staff. Unfortunately, the structure that should receive the Centre and the Health Clinic is still in being built; the last floor is incomplete and the centre has not the sufficient equipment to start supplying its medical and psychological assistance.

The project funded by the NandoPeretti Foundation aims at completing the entire structure, giving it the sufficient necessary equipment to achieve the goal of the Centre. The Babadogo Catholic Church HIV/AIDS program was launched in 2004, after a long period of Babadogo reality's analysis. The program aimed to guarantee a good and professional medical service to the people of the area of intervention. Activities commenced one year later. Currently, the program is developed and directed by the Babadogo Catholic Church, and a group of volunteers, who have attended a specific training course on preventing HIV/AIDS.

Taking a look at the past, the major needs and constrains of the target group were, and currently are, as follows:

a. Nowadays, the Babadogo Catholic Church HIV/AIDS program is housed in a temporary structure, previously used as car garage. This structure is inadequate to provide services to the increasing number of patients/clients;

b. The present nurse treatment room within the garage is very congested, there is the necessity to have one drug store, one patient examination room and one treatment room;

c. The program proposes to run free antenatal clinics for the many pregnant mothers who test HIV positive and who cannot access good antenatal care due to poor economic factors. Washrooms are needed for pregnant mothers, along with a waiting room where mothers can receive health education as they wait to be attended to.

Reconstruction and reorganization of the Centre: The construction of a health centre and the reorganization of the services provided are the principal activities of the project.

The new medical assistance centre is still being constructed on a terrain donated to Babadogo Catholic Church and placed at the project's disposition by the church. As established in the engineering plan, the centre will be composed by two floors: the first one measure mt.20,5 x mt.11,7; the second mt.16,6 x mt.9,8.

The first floor will comprise the following:

-Drug store;
-2 Nurses treatment room;
-Counselling room;
-Staff washroom;
-Patients waiting room;
-Store;
-Reception;
-Hall;
-Mothers washroom;
-Health consultation room;
-Waiting health education room.
-Nurses treatment room;

The second floor will comprise:

-Counselling room;
-Staff washroom;
-Patients waiting room HIV;
-Patients examination room;
-Screening room;
-Patients waiting room TB;
-Health Consultant room.

Before the project funding, the structure was incomplete. The second floor was unfinished and the entire centre was lacking equipment. This kind of lack determines the impossibility to supply efficiently the service, for which the centre was imagined and financed for.

Below therefore, is the description of each activity that takes place within the present temporary structure to which we propose to expand to make the services more efficient and responsive to the needs of the many numbers of people who come seeking for medical assistance and these services.

•The programme will dedicate a lot of attention and energy to educative meetings, workshops and conferences on topics as:

- How to avoid contacting HIV-AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases

- How to recognise the early symptoms of venereal diseases and possible interventions to be made.

- Why and How to help victims of these diseases.

These meetings and events will take place in rooms within this proposed new building as well as within large parish halls and communal rooms with the aim of reaching out to as many people as possible. The second major motive is to create some information centres in the different zones and get them inter-connected and coordinated. The overall aim of the project is to provide medical assistance to the sick, but most of all to prevent diseases - something possible by means of information dissemination.

HIV/AIDS program:

•This program of VCT is a Governmental enlightenment program emanating from the National Aids control program which is based in the Federal Ministry of Health. Its services are free to all those who wish to know their HIV/AIDS status. Both pre-test and post-test counselling services are offered. The Government propagates its message through the media and sign-posts which are placed all over the nation.

Voluntary counselling and testing services (VCT):

• The mother to child prevention HIV/AIDS program: the program addresses the issue of the mother to child prevention as we have seen many pregnant mothers who test HIV positive from the VCT who cannot access to antenatal care because of economic constraints;

• The diagnostic and prevention of TB among the population: the government has embarked on an aggressive program of TB diagnosis and prevention. The government has added this program to its voluntary counselling and testing services offered within our Church compound under our care. Sacred Heart Catholic Church Babadogo is particularly vulnerable to this disease. In fact, the numbers seeking diagnosis and care at the centre at Babadogo is becoming so devastating that it is passing out the AIDS one in terms of numbers.

All the above mentioned activities attempt to give an overview of the structure and the project activities in relation to the target group.

This project was initiated through the Catholic Church which has direct contact with the people. So the Government and the Catholic Church are complementary partners with the Church playing a dominant role in identifying the target group through direct contact with the poorest of the poor in the society who have no access to primary health care due to poor economic standards.