Supply a Health Clinic in Uganda

Our GROW team recently returned from an extremely successful trip in Namugoga at Adonai. Last summer when the GROW team of 2014 visited Namugoga, Adonai Family Medical Center was still under construction. As of April 2015, the health clinic was officially open to community members. When this year’s GROW team arrived, the health clinic could accommodate at least four patients and many times had plenty more waiting in the lobby. Though this may not sound like a lot, Adonai Medical Center offers family medicine as well as maternal care, including anti, peri, and postnatal services. At all times, a nurse and a lab technician is on staff while a visiting doctor comes in twice a week. They most commonly treat for tropical and infectious diseases such as malaria and typhoid, with an aim to decrease deaths in the area, especially those of ages five years and younger.

The clinic also offers a more affordable payment plan for clients that make medical treatment more realistic and not so daunting. Though students, teachers, and community members now have a more conveniently located and reliable clinic, Adonai Medical Center still must rely on primitive techniques. Even though their hand-operated centrifuge could use replacing, our focus for the next year is on the tools that are crucially missing. This includes simple tools such as forceps, buckets, and aprons, but also more vital devices such as heart monitors. During the group's short six-week stay, a total of six babies were born, not all without complication. Though the nurse on duty was able to deliver a breech baby blindly and without those tools, it is not for certain that this luck will repeat. These are items on the top of our list for the upcoming year.

Lastly, the Adonai Medical Center has construction plans in progress to build a second floor. Because of the organization’s frequent hospitality of visitors, one to two rooms are generally reserved for guests. With this new addition, at least six more beds will be open to accommodate more community members, offering them more privacy while volunteers stay on the second floor. With now only six months of operation, the Adonai Medical Center has already begun to make a profit in the hopes to eventually become self sustainable in paying their health-workers and replenishing their medical supplies even without the help of GlobeMed.

We are excited to begin the new year at Northwestern with some amazing GlobeMed events and fundraisers that are already in the works. In the next few weeks, we will begin to recruit our new chapter members and have our first meetings of the year. We are looking forward to this school year and all the great things we are hoping to accomplish!