Our new website

We are very pleased to let you know that our new website at http://www.arrowkenya.org/ is proving to be very popular. We have had nearly 500 "hits" since it was launched at the end of October.

If you click on the link below you can see where in the world the "hits" come from: http://arrowkenya.org/vmap.php

Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions via the "Contact Us" section on the site menu.

Arrow Kenya is asked to give a presentation at a British Council workshop

Last week we were asked to give a presentation at a British Council workshop in Nairobi. The workshop was to inform health service providers from across Kenya of the UK International Health Links Funding Scheme.

As you know we are currently working with NHS Grampian in the UK, writing an application for funding, which if successful will provide training and development opportunities for our staff and some colleagues from Embakasi next year.

Answering questions about our plans for a link with NHS Grampian

Making sure the equipment works before we start

WORLD AIDS DAY - DECEMBER 1st 2010

Started on December 1st 1988, World AIDS Day is about raising money, increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education. The World AIDS Day theme for 2010 is "Universal Access and Human Rights".

World AIDS Day is also an opportunity for us to remember people we have known who have died of AIDS.

According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.3 million people living with HIV including 2.5 million children. During 2009 2.6 million people became infected with the virus and an estimated 1.8 million died of AIDS.

In Kenya 1.5 million people out of a population of over 39 million are living with HIV/AIDS; around 1.2 million children have been orphaned by AIDS; and in 2009 around 80,000 people died of an AIDS related illness.

For more information about HIV/AIDS in Kenya : http://www.avert.org/hiv-aids-kenya.htm

Arrow Web Hospital and HIV/AIDS

The staff at Arrow Web Hospital and the Community Outreach Team are making a real contribution to the prevention of the spread of HIV in the Embakasi District of Nairobi.

We offer confidential counselling to people of all ages before and after HIV testing at Arrow Web Hospital. If a patient tests HIV positive we then refer them for Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) from a local NGO.

Our Community Outreach Team raises awareness about HIV transmission and the importance of using condoms, with individuals and groups in the community, encouraging people to go to Arrow Web Hospital for testing if they have been at risk.

Patients who become ill with AIDS related illness are given "first aid" treatment at Arrow Web Hospital and then referred to Kenyatta National Hospital for specialist treatment. We help many patients by providing transport to take them there, as it is 34 kms away.

Our main contribution to the reduction of the spread of HIV is PMTCT or the prevention of mother to child transmission. An HIV infected mother can pass on HIV to her baby during pregnancy, labour and delivery or through breastfeeding. Without treatment up to 30% of babies born to HIV positive mothers will be infected during pregnancy and delivery and up to 20% will become infected through breastfeeding.

The rates of transmision from mother to baby can be greatly reduced if they are given the appropriate ART as soon as possible. It is therefore really important that we encourage pregnant women to find out their HIV status so that we can give them counselling, start their treatment and encourage then to come to Arrow Web Hospital for the delivery. Many women are reluctant to find out their HIV status and very afraid of their husband's reaction when they find out they are HIV positive. So we also offer HIV positive women support after their baby is born.

Last year we provided ante natal care for over 1400 women and over 1300 women came to Arrow Web Hospital to deliver their babies.

For information about how HIV is transmitted:http://www.avert.org/can-you-get-hiv-aids.htm

Here is a link to three posters in different languages: World AIDS Day Posters 2010

Avert World AIDS Day 2010 Video:

Open Clinic for Baby Immunisations

Every Saturday, mothers whose babies were delivered at Arrow Web Hospital are invited to bring their babies back to see us for their immunisations.

Arrow Web Hospital also provides extra open clinics for women who chose to have their babies at home. Our Community Outreach Team works with local communities to raise awareness about many health issues and they explain the importance of protecting babies against many illnesses which can be disabling or even fatal. In the first year of life we offer immunisation against illnesses such as diptheria, polio, tetanus, measles and tuberculosis. We also give the babies a much needed vitamin boost.

At last week's busy open clinic we immunised 187 babies. All immunisations are carefully recorded and numbers are submitted to the District Health Authority on a monthly basis.

"Next please"

"I've brought my baby's record card along"

" Watching carefully before it's our turn"

"Good, not long to wait now"

More international partnerships for Arrow Web Hospital

Dundee medical students

In the last blog we told you about the three Dundee University medical students who were planning to spend six weeks with us for their medical elective. Well, now they are halfway through their time with us. They have become very involved in the hospital routine, admitting new patients to the hospital and treating them under the supervision of our doctors. They have been assisting at out patient clinics and one of the highlights for them has been seeing newborn babies and healthy mothers after safe deliveries at Arrow Web Hospital. They have also been out with the Community Outreach Team.

Having such enthusiastic and competent volunteers for six weeks has been a great support to our busy staff team.

It hasn't all been work for Sarah, Christine and Catriona as they have managed to do some sightseeing. Their visits have included Nairobi City and a few days in Mombasa.

Sarah, Christine, Catriona and Bram taking a well earned break

Proposal for a grant to fund a new hospital

We have been very busy over the last few weeks writing a proposal for funds to build a new 21 bedded hospital on land allocated to us by Nairobi City Council. Having successfully submitted an application to the Japanese Embassy in Nairobi in April, we were asked to draw up a very detailed proposal in July. Before a final decision is made the Embassy staff may ask to undertake another "site visit" this month.

A new building will not only provide a much better environment for patients to be treated in and for staff to work in, it will also help us develop our hospital and community based services. It will help us in our application for a higher level of National Health Insurance Fund accreditation. As you may know our main income is from the Ministry of Health for every registered patient we treat. A higher level of accreditation will increase this income helping us to sustain our services. We will also be able to take referrals from other health facilities in the area. (Poorer patients pay a small registration fee and then they can receive free treatment).

NHS Grampian

NHS Grampian is a health board (or health authority) in the north east of Scotland. A few months ago we approached a senior doctor and nurse from NHS Grampian to see if the organisation would like to develop a partnership with us. NHS Grampian provides services in hospitals and the community and has close links with the local medical school and medical research institutions.( http://www.nhsgrampian.org/ )

When they heard about the work that we do and the challenges we face, Dr Jamie Hogg and Liz Tait were really keen to work with us. Jamie is deputy medical director and a general practitioner (community doctor) and Liz is a nurse and clinical governance co-ordinator. Jamie worked in Nepal from 2006-8. This included working as a doctor in a small hospital. He is also a trustee of a charity Asha Nepal which re-integrates and supports HIV positive trafficked women and children (http://www.asha-nepal.org/) . For the past five years Liz has also been a team leader for various deployments to disaster zones on behalf of the UK Foreign Office.

With the support of the NHS Grampian medical director and Arrow Kenya Board we now have a formal partnership. I am so excited as we have also been successful in getting funding for a "start up" grant from the International Health Links Funding Scheme, to enable Jamie, Liz and me to visit Arrow Web Hospital at the end of September. The purpose of the visit is to agree how the two organisations can work together for mutual benefit. Further funding will need to be applied for, to enable professional links to be developed next year.( http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-healthlinks.htm)

Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin - one of NHS Grampian's hospitals

Jacaranda Health

Did you know that in the Nairobi slums 1 in 142 women die in childbirth, this compares to 1 in 178 for the rest of Kenya and 1 in 7300 in countries with well developed maternity services ?

Last week we were very privileged to receive a visit from six representatives from Jacaranda Health, from the UK, USA, Korea and Zambia. This is a new venture which aims "to provide affordable, high quality maternity care to low income women in urban Kenya". Using vans for mobile ante natal care and outreach, they also hope to set up special clinics to offer "women centred" maternity services. Initially they hope to start this service in the Nairobi slums. With common aims and shared values we had so much to discuss. We are very pleased to announce that Jacaranda Health has chosen to work with us in a special community healthcare partnership.

Bram says that currently about 70% of babies born in the communities around Arrow Web Hospital are delivered at home, with no midwife or medical assistance nearby to help the women if there are any complications.

A very warm welcome to Jacaranda Health from Arrow Web Hospital

Discussing how we can work together

A link to Jacaranda on You Tube with a video about women in the Nairobi Slums:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6qVqREcXb8

Our website

We have also been working on updating the website so that there is more information about the work we do and to acknowledge the generous support we receive from partners, friends, volunteers and donors both locally and nationally.

Thank you Jennifer and very best wishes

Bram and Jennifer have asked me to provide the regular updates for the blog from now on. Jennifer has been extremely busy since January this year, using her very special skills and experience to support the humanitarian response to the devastation of the Haitian earthquake.

I have always looked forward to Jennifer’s updates and found the information she has provided over the last two years really helpful for me in getting to know about all the great work being done by Bram, the staff, the Board and volunteers.

I live near Aberdeen in Scotland and started working with Bram as a UN online volunteer in January. I have been helping him write and co-ordinate funding proposals.

Thank you Jennifer and very best wishes - you will be a very hard act to follow.

Progress towards a new purpose built hospital

As many of you know, in spite of the service developments at Arrow Web Hospital and with the Community Outreach Team over recent years, we have not been able to meet the huge demand for our services. We need a new purpose built hospital to continually improve the quality and scope of services we provide to the people of Kayole - Soweto and to other areas within the Nairobi slums.
Unfortunately it is particularly difficult to raise funds for buildings from many of the large grant providers.

You may remember that staff from the Japanese Embassy Ambassador’s office honoured us with a visit last year and were very interested in our work. We followed this up with a call to the Grants for Grassroots Projects department at the Embassy and were advised to submit a formal application. Bram hand-delivered the Board’s application to the Embassy in April. We are really pleased to let you know that our application has moved on to the final “screening” stage.

The Embassy has asked us to provide more information about how we can ensure the long term sustainability of a new hospital. The Embassy has advised us that more detailed plans need to be submitted for the next stage by September, as the decisions about awarding grants are made in December. Bram and the Arrow Kenya Board are working on this.

The community have given us a plot of land nearby for a new hospital. Bram has now registered the plot with the Ministry of Lands for a lease period of 99 years. This makes our position much more secure.

Kat photographs two boys on the land allocated for the new hospital.

COCO Visits Arrow Web Hospital

We felt really privileged when Lucy Philipson and her colleague Kat found time to visit Arrow Web last month while they were in Kenya. Lucy is operations and projects manager for COCO ( http://www.coco.org.uk/ ) a registered UK charity which supports grass roots education and healthcare projects in many countries, including Kenya. It works with projects which “encourage community involvement and capacity building and projects that represent an investment in and a commitment to brighter futures for children”. They provide long term support rather than “one off” grants, to carefully selected projects.

Kat has taken many wonderful photos and is also editing a film of their visit which we will post on the website. Lucy will be able to show these to her Board of Directors and COCO’s supporters to help them decide if they are able to work with us in the future.

I visited Lucy in the COCO office in Newcastle in the UK recently. I was able to give Lucy more information about the work being done at Arrow Web Hospital and by the Community Outreach Team. Lucy was very interested to hear about our plans for a new hospital and was very impressed with the work already being done. She told me that Arrow Web Hospital is the kind of grass roots project which COCO likes to support. We will let you know if there are any developments.

The children are fascinated by Kat's camera equipment- many thanks for all the photos Kat

A fruit stall near the hospital

A busy immunisation clinic helping to protect the next generation

Another safe delivery thanks to the staff at Arrow Web Hospital

Waiting to eat his banana

Deep in thought

A little boy receives life saving treatment for malaria at Arrow Web Hospital

Lucy heads up country to another COCO project

Dundee medical students – Catriona and Christine

Catriona and Christine, two medical students from Dundee University Medical School in Scotland have chosen to work at Arrow Web Hospital. They leave for Kenya on July 15th for their six week medical elective.

I live near Dundee so I was able to meet them recently. They are really excited about their visit. They very much look forward to learning from hospital and community staff about providing healthcare in a very different environment. As they are fourth year medical students they will be able to bring a very broad range of skills and experience with them.

Catriona and Christine, we really look forward to hearing all about your experiences and I hope you are ready with your camera Bram!

Students from The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Over the last year, Arrow Web Hospital has been honored to welcome a variety of guests at our facility.  We truly believe in building strong partnerships within the international health community and part of that involves supporting promising students working through their medical training program.  This year, Arrow Web Hospital welcomed several students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  The students traveled to Kenya as part of a 2-week medical elective. Yukie, Kent, Aggie, Clive, Shan and Zaida worked under the guidance of the Arrow Web Hospital staff.  We sincerely hope that this was a valuable learning experience for each of the students and that it will serve them well in the future as they begin their professional careers.  We would also like to thank the students for their donating a box of medical gloves to our facility.

Community Health Improvement Seminar

Arrow Web Hospital partnered with the Embakasi District Health Nurse's Office and recently held a seminar at the Hotel Central Park Nairobi.  This partnership was initiated by Mrs. Florence, Arrow Web Hospital's Community Outreach Team Leader.  The seminar's focus was on community health improvements.  All of the community health centers and clinics in Embakasi were invited to attend. We discussed the importance of networking among the existing health care providers.  All involved agreed that a coordinating team should be selected and we are happy to report that one of the Arrow Web Hospital doctors was chosen to lead this team. The event was more successful than we ever anticipated.  We are all looking forward to working in collaboration to promote healthy living in our community.

Alison Lowndes from AVIF Visits Arrow Web Hospital

Alison Lowndes, the founder of AVIF in the UK, recently traveled to Kenya and paid a visit to Bramuel and the Arrow Web Hospital staff.  Alison is actively working to help the hospital raise the funds necessary to pay for a shipping container to get needed medical equipment from the UK to the hospital in Kenya.  The shipping container will be filled with equipment donated by UK based charity, Aid to Hospitals Worldwide.

(Did you notice the great bicycles from Tour D'Afrique in the picture above?)

You can help us raise the funds necessary to ship this life saving equipment to Kenya - you can make an online donation by clicking here and visiting our page at Just Giving.

It is critical that these funds be raised before July 2010 to pay for the container to ship as planned.

Help Fund a Shipping Container Filled with Medical Supplies

You may notice the JustGiving widget that was added to the blog this week.  Last year, Alison Lowndes of AVIF told us about Aid 2 Hospitals Worldwide in the UK.  Alison made a trip to visit them and found out what would be necessary for the hospital to receive help obtaining the medical equipment we are currently lacking.  We are happy to report that the fantastic people at Aid 2 Hospitals Worldwide have managed to source an entire container-full of urgently needed medical and surgical equipment for the hospital, but now we need to work on raising the funds necessary to get the container from the UK to Nairobi.  

You can help us get this container to Nairobi.  We need your help.  Every little bit takes us that much closer to reaching our goal.  Please visit our fundraising page at http://www.justgiving.com/arrowweb and consider giving what you can.  

Even if you cannot help by donating money - some of the other ways that you can help include:

1.  Share a link to our fundraising page on Twitter or Facebook.

2.  Write about our hospital on your blog or share the fundraising widget.

3.  Share a link to the fundraiser in your email signature.

We really appreciate your support.  It will go a long way toward helping us promote healthy living and better serve our community.

Supporting Survivors of Sexual Assault

Arrow Web Hospital has opened a rescue center for women and girls who are survivors of sexual assault in our community.  So far, 30 women and girls have benefited from treatment.  Once treatment is obtained, we provide the women with a letter to take to the police.  We have hired a new doctor who will dedicate time to this to the center.

TOUR D'AFRIQUE DONATES 15 ADDITIONAL BICYCLES

Many of you may remember that last year, Tour D'Afrique made a generous donation of bicycles for the Arrow Web Hospital community health team.  We are so pleased to share pictures from this year's bicycle donation ceremony held again at the beautiful Indaba East Africa Campsite in Nairobi.  Tour D'Afrique has made another very generous donation of 15 bicycles to Arrow Web Hospital.  We thank you for making it possible for us to reach out to more and more people.  Enjoy the pictures from the ceremony!

Watching the children of the Masai community dance for the bicycle donation ceremony.

Volunteers looking on watching the children dance.

Chairman of Arrow Web Hospital chatting with members of the Masai community.

Mike with the Chairman of Arrow Web Hospital.

One of the Arrow Web Hospital doctors addressing those in attendance at the bicycle donation ceremony.

Chairman of Arrow Web Hospital with the bicycles donated to our community health team.

Making a Difference for Women and Children

It's hard to believe that January is almost over.  We wanted to share a few pictures with you of things going on around the hospital. We are always so happy to be the first ones to welcome the newest members of our community to the world.

Two of our doctors discussing patient care.

A doctor checking on a patient on the ward.

A new mother proudly holding her baby.

In active labor waiting to give birth.

A doctor with patients in the examining room.

Happy New Year!

Just over 3 years ago, two small baby girls were born at Arrow Web Hospital.  At the time of their birth, their mother did not have any money to pay for her medical care, but the hospital board released her with no charges.  This mother recently stopped by the hospital with her little girls to say "thank you" for helping her bring her healthy little girls into the world.  

Since December 31, 2009, 37 new babies have been welcomed into the world at Arrow Web Hospital.  Out of these 37 infants, 24 of them are twins!