Romania 2024
Philippines 2024
We held very successful medical clinics in Estancia seeing 600 patients overv4 days. Our fantastic US crew partnered with local public health nurses, teachers, friends and family, and on one day a pediatrician. The support we received was amazing. We identified new cases of hypertension, diabetes, suspected angina and lots of other issues. Some patients are non compliant with medications due to financial hardship while others needed education on the importance of taking medications and adhering to a diet.
Kenya 2023
We had a successful trip despite a few beurocratic issues. Our planned 1st clinic day at Kamuchege was cancelled at the last minute by the county governor. So went to Kamahia primary school and pitched in painting classrooms with paint and supplies we previously purchased. This is one of the schools we paid to have latrines refurbished earlier this year
Romania 2022
We had another successful trip to Tulcea visiting some of the same villages as last year as well as adding some new ones. Once again, we partnered with Sprijin Fara Frontiere who not only continue their work helping poor Romanian communities but now are also assisting Ukrainian refugees and are assisting other groups getting supplies into Ukraine.
Our first day was a clinic at Chilie Viche, a remote, multi-hour journey on unpaved roads just across the Danube from Ukraine where we saw 65 patients. The people were so grateful! We identified many undiagnosed diabetics and gave advice to patients with poorly controlled Diabetes Mellitus and hypertension as well as a variety of other conditions. Our partners will be assisting them with getting medications and follow-up going forward. We then had a day in Tulcia proper where we saw Ukrainian refugees being assisted by Sprinjin Fàrà Frontiere and subsequent days had pop-up clinics in Nicolae Balcescu, Sinoe, and Nifon which are villages we had visited last year.
We had amazing help from a third-year Romanian medical student, a recent Romanian medical school graduate, a recent Romanian Biomedical engineer graduate and a 3rd year neurosurgery resident from Moldova as well as other non-medical volunteers.
The last days included a clinic in Peceneaga, at a private home we used last year. The wonderful owners not only allowed us use of their home but gave us a feast afterwards! Finally, we saw just a few patients using a home we had not visited before, at Dunavatu de Sus, close to a bay connecting to the Black Sea.
Our plan is to return to Romania in April 2023.
Romania 2021
We had 5 medical clinics in 4 days in the villages of Pecenaega, Nicolae Balcescu, Nifon, and Sinoe of eastern Romania. We also visited 8 homebound patients! Our patients presented with numerous cases of uncontrolled or undiagnosed diabetes and hypertension, a variety of acute and subacute injuries, skin, ear and eye problems. The majority of the villagers were not vaccinated for Covid 19, by choice rather than an issue of access. As we have done in Kenya, we also provided reading eyeglasses to all in need.
Our gracious hosts, Mihai and Magda Pungila of Sprijin Fara Frontiere, made sure to follow up, purchasing and delivering medications to selected patients the day following our clinics. They also provided us with a wonderful group of assistants/translators including two excellent, new medical school graduates. We look forward to working with this group in the future.
Zanzibar
In 2016 we made a connection with CHaRA, a faith based charitable organization, doing humanitarian work on the semi-autonomous island Zanzibar. They had hoped we could do medical clinics similar to those we do in Kenya. Through CHaRA we connected with ZANA, Zanzibar Nurses Association, and had medical clinics at three remote villages in 2018 and 2019. We also held didactic sessions with student nurses at ZANAs office and supplied them with medical textbooks, notepads, glucometers, and blood pressure cuffs.
Hawa Orphanage
Josphat Kanui has a strong relationship with the Hawa Boy's Home where so-called street children, typically with unknown parents, are adopted and provided with housing, education, and skilled trade training. We have made several visits to the orphanage donating educational supplies, uniforms, performing well child checkups, deworming, and on our most recent visit donated a pregnant dairy cow resulting in two milk producing cows for the orphanage.
Water Filter Connection
When we decided to pursue deworming, we explored ways to decrease the rate of reinfection. During a presentation to the Soroptimist of Loomis Basin, one of the members gave us the name of a group they had donated to in the past and felt that they could be of assistance to us. The group was the For One Another Foundation. They provide a simple and highly effective water filtration package designed for areas that clean water is not available. They were very supportive of our efforts and assisted us with providing their system to the local schools and Kagaa Dispensary. We trained the Outreach Healthcare Volunteers on the assembly and maintenance of the system. We have distributed them to the schools and monitor to ensure that they are in working order and the proper maintenance is being done.
Eyeglass Distribution
For Unimedlink's 2014 trip we were donated 300 pairs of prescription eyeglasses not all of which were useable. The need for these glasses was overwhelming; we distributed 213 pairs and sadly had to turn people away due to time constraints and availability of matching prescriptions to patients. We continued with eyeglasses in following years and expanded distribution to several secondary schools. A memorable moment was a farmer nearly in tears stating that he could see his farm clearly across the valley for the first time in his adult life.
Kenya
The Medical Clinics
We provide basic medical screening (mostly hypertension and diabetes), promote health education and disease prevention. We are fortunate to be able to administer available medications provided by the dispensary.
The Medical Camp attracts people that often don’t visit the clinic. This gives the staff the opportunity to provide their services to a greater number of people than usual. These include updating medical records and vaccinations, family planning, cervical cancer screenings and HIV counseling and testing.
The Outreach Healthcare Volunteers
We are very pleased to have made this connection during our 2014 trip. These individuals provide a wide variety of services to the community. Most importantly they go out into the community, farm to farm, door to door to educate people about HIV, how to avoid, why be tested, and how to seek treatment.
The Schools
When we first visited the schools, we asked the headmistress/headmaster what things we could do that would benefit the children. The first was the deworming issue; the second was a heartfelt request for basic school materials for the students: pencils, rulers, writing tablets, and storybooks. In 2014 we provided some of the much-needed materials. We duplicated this effort in subsequent years and eventually provided the schools with simple libraries. Please see our photos.