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/

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.

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

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.