September 2, 2008

  • Technology Has Arrived!!!

    Technology has arrived in Zambia!!!!!  The Kazunguka District Ministry of Health, thanks to CDC, has given us a desktop computer and printer with a battery back up unit.  Why. you ask? Well it is to incorporate us into the SmartCard program already begun throughout the country.  Every ART patient (patient taking HIV meds) and every antenatal patient (pregnant mother) will be logged into the computer and given a SmartCard.  The card is like a credit card but will have all of their medical information on it so they can travel from place to place.  Great idea you think….well yes it is progress, but most of our patients remember live in grass huts in the African bush.  The card can easily be lost, damaged by fire or eaten by rats….. (you should see their cardboard antenatal cards when they come in and they just have to keep those for nine months! )  Also, most of them can’t afford transport into town let alone travel from place to place.  That’s the whole reason why we provided transport for the first three years and now we go to them with their ART medicines.  Don’t get me wrong…I welcome change here and I think the computerized chart is a great idea and we are already using it….Sal and I.  Teaching the computer program to the staff will be another step forward. The people from CDC out of Lusaka who brought the computer and set it up were excited because they said, “We know you will use it.” Evidently there are some other centers that have had the computer for awhile, but are not using it.  It is intimidating to people who have never been exposed to a computer or had access to a computer…..some Zambians do use computers in town for e-mail purposes, but not actual programs and data entry. I do believe Geoffrey is more computer savvy, but we haven’t been able to discuss with him as of yet. He wasn’t here when the computer and CDC personnel arrived.

    Before the excitement had time to wear off that Kazungula District Health Ministry has been really including us in their programs…..they gave us a refrigerator!!!!

    They gave us one of the refrigerators donated from Japan specifically designed for the storage of immunizations.  The blue chest style refrigerator also has a small freezer section and runs on electricity, propane and kerosene.  It’s very nice!

                AIDS Alliance, a US organization sponsored a training for three of our HIV patients who are positively living with HIV to be treatment supporters in the community.  Their job will be to work with us in their communities helping to promote ART drug adherence and proper nutrition, along with early recognition of any side effects. They will report back to us any defaulters or problems.  They will also be paid monthly by AIDS Alliance….and a pretty good salary to boot! 

                Speaking of “community”…..I have a list of interested people here at SoT , one or two from each village, given to me by each headman, who I am going to train to be our first community health evangelists or CHEs.  That’s the workshop I went to in Swaziland and I am going to move forward with the program first here at SoT.  We are getting ready to have our first meeting.  I will probably have a couple meetings, but I will begin training after our return from furlough in December or January. Community Health Evangelism is the combining of physical and spiritual health promotion in the community with home visits….each visit incorporates a health lesson with a Bible lesson.  I continue to be reminded of the mission statement of Sons of Thunder….”to feed Africa physically and spiritually through the enabling of the Holy Spirit.”  I really feel this program is just another stepping stone lighting up for us here at SoT Medical. When Sal and I came in 2005….beside the call to “start a clinic on the farm”, we were also called to “Feed a Nation” Our base is the SoT Medical Clinic here at the farm, but we are supposed to reach out into the communities “feeding Zambia physically and spiritually through the enabling of the Holy Spirit.”  With no plan of our own, that’s exactly what I see happening.  As we just do what is put in front of us each day trusting God to light the next stone in the journey…..we are moving out…..we are in five different communities now with SoT making six., covering one whole side of the Kazungula District. Sometimes I just take time to peek over my shoulder and see the tapestry God has already woven, pondering what will be the finished masterpiece!