MORE NEWS ABOUT MELISSA'S DREAM

Local publicity for Melissa

We are pleased to let you know that the funds raised via the Sunsuper website have now been transferred to us. Melissa's dream to fund lifesaving resusitation equipment for our newborn babies has been featured in two of her local newspapers the Kiama Independent and the Illawarra Mercury.

Bram is now researching the most suitable resusitation equipment for Arrow Web Hospital so that we can install it as soon as possible.

The mattresses arrive

The mattresses and covers which were bought with the money donated for the container have arrived. This will make a real difference to the comfort of patients and the mattress covers will help reduce the spread of infection.

Thank you to everyone who kindly agreed to the "container funds" being used for this purpose.

Bram is still awaiting approval from the Ministry of Health for use of our ambulance which was converted from a second hand mutatu (also from the "container funds").

Unloading the new mattresses outside Arrow Web Hospital

November visitors

Last month we welcomed Judith Barna a nurse from Germany, who came with her two colleagues from Kikuyu town orphanage. Judith hopes to visit us again next year.

Bram and our visitors on the roof of Arrow Web Hospital

"Sorry Bram not your size!"

IT'S OFFICIAL - MELISSA OSTOGA'S DREAM HAS COME TRUE

Lifesaving resuscitation equipment for Arrow Web Hospital

We have just heard the wonderful news that Melissa's dream has come true. Thank you to everyone that voted, her dream won most votes with a huge majority of around 1000. This means that a sum of AUD $5000 can be used to buy urgently needed resuscitation equipment for our newborn babies.

Melissa, we are so very grateful to you. This equipment will make such a difference to babies born at Arrow Web Hospital whose lives are at risk soon after birth.

A premature baby soon after delivery

A HAPPY ENDING TO THE CONTAINER SAGA

An ambulance for Arrow Web Hospital

For those of you who have been following our blog, you may remember that Arrow Kenya board had to make a very difficult decision in August, to give up on our project to ship recycled medical equipment from the UK to Kenya. Although many of our UK supporters had managed to fundraise £1800 to pay the shipping charges, our main donor pulled out at the last minute. Everyone was really disappointed as we had been working on this for over two years with Aid to Hospitals Worldwide http://www.a2hw.org.uk , and Alison Lowndes from AVIF http://www.avif.org.uk/.

We contacted the UK donors and asked them if they would like their donations returned or used to pay for the conversion of a second hand matatu (minibus) to an ambulance and for new mattresses and covers for hospital beds. As we need to transfer about 20-30 patients per month to larger specialist hospitals, the Kenyan National Hospital Insurance Fund inspectors had told us that an ambulance was a priority. So, in August our local garage set to work on the matatu; meeting the NHIF standards which included a bed, water supply and first aid equipment.

Working on the inside of the ambulance after the seats had been taken out

Our new ambulance - fit for purpose

The ambulance is now being checked over by the Ministry of Health before we can start using it. This will make a big difference to patients who have had to be transferred in Bram's car or by board members in the past.

Thank you again to Alison Lowndes and all our very generous UK donors who made this possible.

Melissa's dream is still in the lead

With just over three days of voting to go, Melissa's dream to fund urgently needed resuscitation equipment for newborn babies at Arrow Web Hospital, is still in the lead.

http://sunsuperdreams.com.au/dreams/popular

With 4892 votes so far, we are nearly 1000 votes ahead of our nearest rival. However, a lot can happen in a few days, so please keep voting and pass on the link to your friends. Your response to this has been overwhelming- so a big thank you to everyone who has supported us, especially to Melissa Ostoga from Australia. Melissa started supporting us via our "village" on Nabuur, a global network of volunteers.

http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/kayole-soweto

Melissa's dream will help ensure all mothers will deliver healthy babies at Arrow Web Hospital

MELISSA'S DREAM FOR US COULD COME TRUE

A premature baby delivered at Arrow Web Hospital

We are really pleased to let you know that Melissa's Dream which we told you about on Monday could come true. Today Melissa's Dream has the most votes of 113 different dreams so far. Of course we need to keep up the momentum and ask as many of our contacts as possible to vote and tell their friends. There are still seventeen days of voting to go.

Thank you so much to everyone who has already voted and of course to Melissa for her Dream which will buy lifesaving resuscitation equipment for our newborn babies.

You can keep track of the voting and vote yourself, if you haven't already, using this link.

http://sunsuperdreams.com.au/dreams/popular

PLEASE HELP MELISSA'S DREAM FOR US COME TRUE

Your vote could fund resuscitation equipment for newborn babies at Arrow Web Hospital

Melissa Ostoja, one of our supporters in Australia has posted her dream for Arrow Web Hospital on the Sunsuper Dreams website. By adding your vote, you can make Melissa's dream come true and save lives in the Nairobi slums.

Over 1500 babies are delivered at the hospital every year, but if a baby has breathing difficulties our doctors and midwives do not have the equipment to help them, so the babies could die.

If Melissa's dream receives the highest number of votes this month, she will be awarded $5000 to make her dream come true. So please take a few minutes to vote and pass the link on to as many of your contacts as possible.

http://sunsuperdreams.com.au/dream/view/resuscitation-equipment-for-newborn-babies

Thank you so much Melissa for your support and for trying to raise funds for Arrow Web Hospital.

Two healthy twins delivered at Arrow Web Hospital

OUR INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS CONTINUE TO SUPPORT US

Chad Hoffman from Christian Mission Aid

Today we had an unexpected, very welcome visitor, Chad Hoffman, regional director from Christian Mission Aid. Bram has been in contact with him for some months now, having recognised that we share the same commitment to improve the lives of our poorest and most vulnerable communities. http://www.cmaid.org/

Christian Mission Aid achieves its mission by training community leaders and by supporting them to work within their own local communities. So Chad was particularly interested to hear about our Community Outreach Team which has huge potential to develop its services if given the necessary training and resources. Chad was keen to find out about the work we already do, raising awareness about our hospital based services and organising medical camps on a variety of health issues.

Bram showed Chad round Arrow Web Hospital while they discussed how we could work together in the future. Chad has invited us to submit a workplan outlining how we could develop our outreach programs, particularly counselling and youth programs, with his organisation's support.

This is of course a tremendous opportunity for us, as our work in the community, unlike some our hospital based services, receives no support from the government.

Chad pauses to speak to a mother with her child who is receiving treatment

Chad was very interested to hear about our laboratory

Only a few days to go for Sebastian

We are really grateful to volunteer medical student Sebastian Kadex who has been working with us for six weeks now. He has been a great help to our medical staff and we do hope he has enjoyed his stay with us. He returns home to Germany on Friday and we will certainly miss him.

Sebastian working with Dr Ishmael at one of our busy baby clinics

Next month we look forward to welcoming Rosie Jeffries, from France (originally from the UK) and Kelly Potter from the US.

Improving the volunteer's experience

We have recently introduced a volunteer feedback questionnaire so that we can continually try to improve the volunteers' experience with us. James and his medical student friends who worked with us in July, suggested to us that it would be helpful if we were able to provide volunteers with information about the likely medical conditions, and the treatments available, before they arrived to work with us. So one of our great friends Dr John Gilbert from the UK is preparing a handbook for future medical student and nursing volunteers. We are very grateful to John, who you may remember volunteered with us about two years ago for six weeks, while still a medical student.

MORE VOLUNTEER NEWS

Goodbye and thank you to our Australian friends
Last week we had to say goodbye to the six Australian medical student volunteers who have worked so hard for us during their visit. We have learnt much from them and as you can see from Tori's blog they seemed to have learned from us too. We do hope you have a good rest in Mombasa and a safe trip home to Sydney. http://kickstartkidsinternational.com/category/victoria/

The volunteers show off their Certificates Of Appreciation

A special thank you from Bram to James who organises the volunteer placements

A Social Worker volunteer from the US

As you know we have been very fortunate to welcome many volunteers over the years, mainly from the medical profession who are able to work with our doctors and nurses at Arrow Web Hospital. So we were very pleased to hear from Brooke Scole, a social worker from the US when she offered to work with us for six weeks.

Brooke has been working mainly with Rachel our own social worker and each has been able to learn from the other about the real challenges in providing services to the most vulnerable and poor in their very different communities.

Much of Rachel's time is spent in the community in some of the poorest slums in the world and Brooke was able to work with her there and in Arrow Web Hospital.

Brooke holds a young baby in her arms at Arrow Web Hospital

She admires a proud mum's new baby at the clinic

Brooke hard at work at the busy immunisation clinic

Brooke has been a great help to us and we look forward to hearing more about her before she goes home.