Provide Essential Lab Services for Pregnant Women

You did it! You helped us beat our funding goal, and get enough to not only buy a new microscope, reagents for STD tests, a good stock of COVID-19 rapid tests, but vital protection gear for our staff so they minimize their risks of being exposed to COVID-19. This could not have happened without your generous donations and your support. We are so grateful for your help in these challenging times. 

We used the extra funding -- and $5000 that we received from GlobalGiving as a separate grant -- to ensure that our clinics have ample stock of COVID-19 rapid tests and PPE to protect our patients and our staff until well into 2021.

Your generosity will have a lot of consequences. Women won't have to pay for a COVID-19 rapid test when they come to give birth at our center. Patients can be quickly assessed and admitted for birth. They won't have to wait for hours in a hospital for test results or be transferred between hospitals because rapid tests are not available or the patient can't afford to pay one. They won't have to risk the adverse consequences of delaying medical attention for hours, especially if they are high risk patients or have a history of birth complications. Patients with medical conditions such as STDs will get prompt diagnosis and treatment. Our midwives and nurses feel protected both physically with PPE and also by knowing that all the patients they treat have been fully tested for a range of conditions.

Having a baby is a powerful and life-changing experience for a woman. We love it when we hear stories like Charlotte's who had her first baby at Bumi Sehat in 2018. When it was time for her second baby to be born last month, Charlotte returned to Bumi Sehat to give birth. Even in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said there was nowhere else she would consider having a baby. She trusted that the staff would protect her, her new baby and themselves and make sure she had a safe birth. Charlotte had a healthy baby girl and was able to go home after a few days. 

Thank you for supporting us in these challenging times while we continue to serve the Bali community.

We told you that it was crucial that Yayasan Bumi Sehat be able to offer vital testing services for pregnant and birthing women and we asked for your help. Our lab didn't have the microscope needed for White Blood Cell (WBC) and STD testing or the reagent needed to check for HIV. We urgently needed more COVID-19 rapid tests because, under Indonesian health regulations, women can't be admitted to our clinic unless they have been tested and have a negative result. 

Thanks to your support, we've now reached our goal and been able to purchase the lab equipment, test reagents and COVID-19 rapid tests that we needed! We can now test each of the almost 500 women that will give birth at our Bali clinic over the coming year. We'll be able to detect STD or HIV infections and make sure those women get started on treatment as soon as possible, that their partners are checked and their families receive counseling and medical advice. We can also prepare protocols to protect the baby and our midwives from possible exposure during birth.

Thanks to a special COVID-19 grant from GlobalGiving, we have also been able to increase our stock of rapid tests to meet demand over the next 6 - 9 months. This means we will never have to turn a woman away because the clinic can't test her for COVID-19, sending her to a hospital that she may not be able to afford, or having to pay for a test at an inflated cost. We've also been able to ensure we have protective gear for our staff, who put their health and families at risk to continue to serve our local community. Now we've got enough gloves, masks and PPE to make sure that our nurses and midwives stay healthy and safe.

With the pandemic having hit the tourist economy in Bali very hard, many people have lost jobs or income and can't pay much for health expenses. Thank you for standing by us while we continue to serve the Bali community regardless of ability to pay.