Hospital

Impluvium

The water pump that was installed at the hospital (shown left) has a complicated history. Due to a combination of social and technical factors, the pump has been repaired several times. Most villagers in the surrounding think that the pump belongs to the hospital, hence the lack of overall leadership and coordinated participation from the villagers. Because of the unreliability of the pump (also due to the aquifer that is unreliable in the dry season), with the work and technological expertise of social enterprise Bushproof we decided to install an impluvium (a rain storage tank, shown right) to ensure the hospital has water throughout the year.

The most frequently occurring diseases are (depending on the season) respiratory-related illnesses, flu, malaria, bilharzia, diarrhea (malnutrition, unclean water, and lack of toilets), tuberculosis and STDs. Furthermore, according to one of the medical practitioners, there are a lot of people suffering from mental health issues, due to poverty and general hardships.

The nurse/ birth attendant explains to us the major challenges she faces when assisting in birth, and in the hospital in general. There is often a lack of food for the women who give birth, and of clothes for the newly-born. There is not always sterile equipment at hand, which increases the risk of contamination for patients. There are bats in the building and there is often no electricity. Since they have access to clean water the risk of infections for women who deliver is much lower.

 

Half an hour before we visited the hospital a woman gave birth to a child. In a room next to the ward a woman was cleaning the materials that were used during the birth. In a house nearby the hospital the sister of the new mother was preparing food for her sister.