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.

MORE INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEERS SUPPORT US

Jacq Goldthorp from Moray, Scotland

As you know Jacq visited us for two weeks earlier this year. She spent time with our staff at Arrow Web Hospital and out in the community with our social worker Rachel. As Jacq walked around the slums, Rachel told her about the desperate situation for people with serious learning disabilities and mental health problems. The government no longer provides them with free treatment and care and this means that many of them live in dire poverty, living on the streets.

Jacq visited Soweto Orphanage and was very impressed with the care provided there for over 250 children. Arrow Web Hospital provides immunisations and inpatient treatment and care for these children as part of the Comprehensive Care Program which has been funded by our board members.. We are currently seeking support from other donors to extend this program to help more of the poorest children in our catchment area.

During her time at Arrow Web Hospital, Jacq was able to help Bram improve the systems for managing finances and for collecting data which is required for the District Health Authority. As a result of all Jacq's work with Bram, we now have more evidence of the good governance of Arrow Kenya to show the government and potential donors. Job Onimo, our assistant board secretary has kindly agreed to lead the improvements which Jacq has recommended.

Jacq, thank you so much for all the advice and support you have given us.

"Thank you Elizabeth for looking after me so well during my stay"

Some of the children Jacq met at Soweto orphanage

Bram takes Jacq up country for a well earned break

This week's volunteers organise a special medical camp

James Harrison. who was introduced to Bram by a fellow medical student volunteer with Alison Lowndes' great charity AVIF, visited us at the end of last year. This week he returned with five other medical students from Kickstart Kids International, "a charity founded and run by young Australians, that enables advantaged countries to help "kickstart" the lives of kids who effectively have nothing"

Apart from helping out at Arrow Web Hospital and in the community, and visiting other health facilities as well as their own projects, James and the other volunteers Miranda Norquay, Victoria Rebecca, David Kc, Amanda Sherwin and Reid Schofield organised a special medical camp at the hospital for the community. They organised special treatment plans and paid for the drugs and supplies needed. These young volunteers treated over 360 children and adults in one day-what an amazing achievement. Thank you so much from Bram and the Arrow Kenya board, the staff and of course the community.

You can read about their experiences on the blogs on the Kickstart Kids International website and on Facebook. http://kickstartkidsinternational.com/category/david/ http://www.facebook.com/KickstartKidsInternational

Apart from the medical students from Australia, we also welcomed a social worker from the US.

Our volunteers from Australia and the US with our staff

"I want to play with your stethoscope Miranda"

"I am not sure about this Miranda"

James with some of our staff and patients

"Open wide for David"

Amanda listens carefully to one of the mothers

But it's not all good news.....

For those of you who have been keeping up with the challenges we have been facing in trying to transport a container full of urgently needed medical equipment and supplies to Arrow Web Hospital - last week Arrow Kenya board had to make the very difficult decision to abandon the project. We were due to ship the container on August 4th, but unfortunately our major donor COCO had to withdraw their offer of support last week, as we do not meet their new funding criteria.

This project which has been going for over three years, has been a lot of hard work for Bram and many of our supporters had given their time and money to help make this happen. Arrow Kenya would like to thank everyone who has worked with us on this project, especially Alison Lowndes from AVIF who helped set it up in the early days and has given us so much support and advice along the way. http://www.avif.org.uk/

We would also like to thank Jackie Keens from Aids to Hospitals Worldwide who has been so helpful and patient with us as we had to keep postponing the shipment, due to the difficulties in getting a Tax Exemption Certificate. http://a2hw.web.officelive.com/default.aspx

We will be contacting everyone who contributed to the project, but if you do not hear from us over the next few weeks, (when we will be asking you if you would like your donation refunded, or used to support other fundraising), please get in touch.

VERY SAD NEWS AND SOME GOOD NEWS

A TRAGIC ACCIDENT

Last week we heard the shocking news that two of our board members had been killed in a tragic car accident. We send our sincere condolences to their families for their great loss. They will be greatly missed by our board and staff.

THIS YEAR'S VOLUNTEERS

We are really pleased to let you know that the following international volunteers have confirmed that they will work with us this year:

Sebastian Nedak a medical student from Germany, who will be working with us for his medical elective for six weeks from June 25th.

Kelly Potter from the US, who will be working with us for three months from September.

James Harrison and his medical colleagues from Australia will be working with us, arriving in July. You may remember James visited us at the end of last year.

A doctor from the Emirates has applied to work with us for a year from October (we are just awaiting further documentation from him) and we are currently discussing some opportunities for another volunteer from Italy, who will be moving to Nairobi for a year in September.

We are always so grateful to all the volunteers who are willing to share their skills and give so much of their time to support the work we do. If you are interested in working with us please go to our "volunteering" section on our website; we would be very interested to hear from you.
(http://arrowkenya.org/help.php#volunteer)

Other visitors

Since our last post, we are really pleased to tell you that Muriel Armstrong a director from COCO visited us. Muriel a senior nursing lecturer from the UK, set up the Kenya Acorn Project in Ndhiwa in Western Kenya in 1998.The charity now runs a hospital and supports five schools.Bram and Muriel were able to share experiences of providing health services in two very different locations.
(http://www.kenyaacornproject.org/History.html).

Thank you for taking the time to visit us, Muriel, during your visit to Kenya.

NHS Grampian

You may remember that we applied to the International Health Links Funding Scheme for funding to support NHS Grampian volunteer doctors and midwives provide training on maternal and infant health for our staff. Unfortunately this application was not successful. However we have just heard that Dr Jamie Hogg's application to the British Medical Association will support another visit from NHS Grampian volunteers later this year. We are now working hard to find funding for a solar powered generator and reliable water supply for the hospital before their visit.

NHIF AUDIT UPDATE

Every quarter we are inspected by the Kenyan government's National Hospital Insurance Fund auditors. In April we scored well with an average of 65% (against the minimum 45% required). The main areas we need to work on are " Equipments and diagnostic" and "Transport". Both depend on our abilty to raise funds. We now need to provide an ambulance to transport patients to more specialist facilities as well as other basic equipment.

Of course the day to day work of the hospital and community outreach team continues, as we face many challenges and work hard to improve the quality of the services we provide. We rely on the commitment and dedication of our board and staff and the great support we receive from local colleagues and our international network of friends and partners.

Another safe delivery at Arrow Web Hospital - this makes it all worthwhile

A BUSY WEEK

THREE SPECIAL VISITORS TO ARROW WEB HOSPITAL

What a day! On Friday Bram welcomed three international visitors from different organisations to Arrow Web Hospital.

Paul from Tour d'Afrique, Toronto Canada

As you know, Paul McManus from Tour d'Afrique had hoped to be able to visit us this week, after he and his colleagues had given us the very generous gift of twenty five bikes, at a local ceremony in Nairobi on Sunday.

Paul was very keen to see for himself the difference these bikes make to the work of our Community Outreach Team members, who rely on them to reach even further into the slums. One of the main roles of our Community Outreach Team is to let people know about the services we offer at the hospital, particularly to encourage expectant mothers to come to the antenatal clinics regularly, have their babies delivered here and then bring their babies to our immunisation clinics. http://www.tourdafrique.com/

John from COCO, Newcastle UK

John, a new member of COCO's team based in Newcastle in the UK visited us too, for the first time. You may remember that Lucy now a director at COCO, and her colleague Kat came to see us last May. As a result, COCO decided to support some of our work with children. COCO has also already pledged over £3000 or 400,000 Ksh to help transport the container of essential medical equipment and suppplies from the UK to Mombasa.

John was particularly interested to hear about our Comprehensive Care Project, targeted at some of our poorest children and orphans. This project ensures there is enough annual funding for the treatment of these children at Arrow Web Hospital, and for the childhood immunisations they need. This year we aim to double the number of children we help in this way to two hundred. These children are the most vulnerable in our community to diseases and illness, many of which are life threatening.

We also discussed with John our plans to set up a system of solar panels, which would give us a continuous electricity supply. At the moment we have great problems when the supply breaks down and equipment fails us. http://www.coco.org.uk/

Jacq from Moray Community Health and Social Care Partnership, Moray UK

Friday was Jacq's first opportunity to see Arrow Web Hospital for herself, having arrived from the UK on Thursday night. Of course she had heard all about us from her colleagues Jamie and Liz from NHS Grampian, who visited us last September. She brought with her a laptop, camera and video camera which had been donated by some of our friends in the UK. She also brought a huge bag of essential medical supplies which Dr Ishmael Onyango, our senior doctor was really pleased with.

Jacq is a self funding volunteer who will be working with us for two weeks. She will be looking at ways of recording all our activity electronically and helping Bram set up electronic systems to make managing our finances easier and more efficient. She hopes to go out into the community with Rachel our Community Outreach Team leader, to find out more about the team's work. This will help with fundraising and in planning for the future. MHSCP link: http://tinyurl.com/4nfnotm

We look forward to hearing more about Jacq's visit and hopefully there will be plenty photos Bram!

Paul, John and Jacq outside Arrow Web Hospital

We are always so pleased to welcome visitors to Arrow Web Hospital and to know that friends all over the world support us. If you would like to hear more about the work we do or would like to arrange a visit, please contact us at http://www.arrowkenya.org/

GENEROSITY FROM INTERNATIONAL DONORS

A BIG THANK YOU TO TOUR D'AFRIQUE

Another year has passed and again we must thank Tour d'Afrique for their great generosity in donating twenty five new bikes for our Community Outreach Team. At a well attended celebration yesterday, the bikes were handed over to us as the riders make their way on the four month long cycle ride from Cairo to Cape Town.

These bikes are so essential to the services we provide in the community, allowing our community support workers to reach a much wider area and of course much more quickly.

The Tour d'Afrique tents

Organising the seating for the speeches

Job our assistant board secretary says thank you

Bram looks at the bikes with the guys from Tour d'Afrique

"What great bikes"

A final thank you and "safe journey" to South Africa from Bram

Many thanks to Mrs Rono for organising the event

More about Tour d'Afrique and the Tour d'Afrique Foundation

Tour d'Afrique is a company based in Toronto which organises cycle tours and races, all over the world. ( http://www.tourdafrique.com/ ) It is famous for its annual tour from Cairo to Cape Town and it is on this long journey that its cyclists stop to hand over bikes to Arrow Kenya. You can read about all their amazing adventures on the blog on their website.

The Tour d'Afrique Foundation is a key part of the company vision and was set up at the same time as the company. The Foundation's mission is :

"To give something back to the people and communities that we pass through on our cycling tours" and

"To raise consciousness about bicycles as an alternative, and in many ways better and more beneficial means of transport"

One of the ways the Foundation achieves its objectives is by donating bikes to individuals and organisations in Africa.

Children from the local orphanage say "Thank you Tour d'Afrique for our bikes too - we hope to see you next year and wish you a safe journey to Cape Town"

We are really pleased that Paul McManus from Tour d'Afrique is finding time to visit us at Arrow Web Hospital. Bram will be able to show him around and tell him more about how the bikes really make a difference to the work of our Community Outreach Team.

ANOTHER BUSY WEEK AT ARROW WEB HOSPITAL

Treating an outbreak in a local orphanage

Apart from the usual services we provide, last week was particularly busy as there was an outbreak of diarrhoea at a local orphanage. So it was "all hands on deck" for our doctors and nurses. As treatment for these children is not covered by the funds we receive from the government we have set up a Comprehensive Care Program for them and other poorer children to make sure they can receive the immunisations and drug treatment they need when they need it. Our board has always funded this program, but this year we are applyng for funds to extend it to help more of our most vulnerable children in our community.

Next in line for an injection

And the girls too

Our senior Doctor Ishmael Onyango gives advice to a young girl

Government report

Bram has been busy completing a very lengthy government report. Although we submit information to the District Health Authority every month, for the first time we are now being asked to complete forms about all our activity related to the government's health indicators. We are also being asked to complete detailed plans to show how we are working towards government targets. Fortunately Arrow Kenya board has already drawn up a plan for this year, taking into account these targets.

The government is expecting us to add the protection of children, adolescents and the elderly to our plans so we will be making it a priority this year.

PLANS FOR 2011

Arrow Kenya board plans

In January, Arrow Kenya board finalised the organisation's plan for this year. Our strategy for 2010- 2012 is to improve the quality and scope of our services and to try to reach more communities in our area of Embakasi District.

We are also trying to focus on the Embakasi District Health Authority Annual Operational Plan priorities and targets and achieve a higher level of accreditation from the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) by gradually meeting more of their criteria.

See our plan and the Kenyan and Embakasi District Health Authority priorities.

Bram and our senior doctor and board member Dr Onyango discuss the plans

Our board chairman Nicodemus Kipruto approves the plans

Another volunteer from the UK

We are really pleased to let you know that Jacq Goldthorp is coming to work with us in March. She is from Moray in Scotland and is a colleague of Dr Jamie Hogg and Liz Tait who visited us last year. Jacq will be helping us improve our data collection and financial management systems. She will also be helping us review the way we record the activity and achievements of our Community Outreach Team. This work is really important to us as it will help us with funding applications. In the future we hope that we will get paid for the out patient and community services we provide. Currently we only receive payment from the government for the inpatients we treat and the babies we deliver at Arrow Web Hospital.

The board and staff really look forward to meeting Jacq and showing her around Arrow Web Hospital and the local community.

LOOKING BACK AT OUR ACHIEVEMENTS IN 2010

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE !

As we look back at 2010 at so many successes (as well as a few disappointments), we realise that we could not have achieved so much without the dedication and commitment of our Board and staff as well as the support, generosity and advice from all our many friends, volunteers and partners at home and abroad.

2010 has been a year for building foundations for the future, strengthening existing partnerships and developing new ones; to enable us to improve the quality and scope of the services we provide to more patients and communities in the Nairobi slums.

Arrow Kenya, with its Arrow Web Hospital and Community Outreach Team continues to go from strength to strength and this is most clearly demonstrated by the increasing numbers of babies, children and adults we have treated and cared for over the years. We increased our total annual numbers by over 25% this year and since 2005 we have provided health education, treatment and care to over 76,000.

Link to activity data and our achievements in 2010

One of our nurses caring for one of the babies born at the end of 2010

Healthy and contented

One of our doctors with a proud new mother

Another very busy immunisation clinic at Arrow Web Hospital

Women and children queuing outside the hospital

Volunteers from Australia

At the end of 2010 we were so pleased to welcome two volunteers from Australia - James, a medical student and Dominique a nurse. This was arranged through a contact of our great friend and supporter Alison Lowndes whose innovative UK charity AVIF (http://www.avif.org.uk/), which assists online and onsite volunteering, is now working with projects in Nepal, Tibet and the Amazon as well as Kenya.

James, a medical student from Australia one of the last volunteers of 2010

The container of medical equipment

Many of you have been eagerly awaiting news of the container of recycled medical equipment which has been accessed for us by Aid to Hospitals Worldwide (A2HW) - a UK charity. We had all hoped that once the necessary Tax Exemption Certificate was provided by the Kenyan Revenue Authority, the shipment would leave the UK in November, arriving at Arrow Web Hospital by the end of 2010. Unfortunately new regulations require approval by the Minister of Health who has to personally sign a Memorandum of Understanding with us. So Bram has been very busy getting this organised. The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry has been very helpful and having heard about all the work done at the hospital and in the community, has said she would like to visit us.

Jackie, our contact at A2HW has been really patient, having to cope with the delays which have been outside our control. As A2HW can only book one shipment per week, we will now have to wait until the beginning of May before our equipment can be sent to Mombasa and then on to us in Nairobi. If there are any cancellations A2HW will be able to ship the container sooner.

So, thank you once again to everyone who has supported us with this project which will bring urgently needed medical equipment and supplies worth over £58,000 or 6,000,000 Ksh to Arrow Web Hospital.

Developments for 2011

We are now finalising our plans for 2011, with a lot of hard work ahead of us and many exciting opportunities. We will post them on the website and look forward to hearing from anyone who feels they can help us meet our objectives. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you would like more information about the services we provide.