HomeNews9,000 families to benefit from an African hospital clinic’s new building
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9,000 families to benefit from an African hospital clinic’s new building

October 30, 2004

Tags: Sickness, Poverty, Service
Kimlea Clinic’s new building will enable it to provide still more services to local communities. Just before the feast of Saint Josemaría this year (2004), Kianda Foundation obtained funding to build a Dispensary. It will consist of a two-storey building with five consulting-rooms, a pharmacy, a laboratory, a ward, a conference room, and more. This will give stability to the services offered by the Clinic to nine local communities, mostly villages of families working in tea and coffee harvesting.

Kimlea Clinic was opened in 1999 by medical students from Nairobi University who attended Fanusi Study Centre, a corporate apostolate of Opus Dei prelature in Nairobi. Following up Saint Josemaría’s teaching about universities, they offered to work in Tigoni, a village 30 km from Nairobi, near Kimlea Training School. Most of the villagers are migrants from other parts of the country. “A university,” said Saint Josemaría, “should not produce people who will selfishly use for their own profit the advantages they have achieved through their studies. Instead, it should prepare students for a life of generous help of their neighbour, of Christian charity.”

“When we saw the conditions these people were living in,” relates Dr Redempta Kimeu, “we realized why there was such a high mortality rate locally. The factors included overcrowding, no sanitation, poor education and poverty. We set to work and soon found we had over a hundred patients waiting on a Saturday morning, mostly women and children.”

Kimlea Clinic began at a site on Kimlea School, with a team of sixteen students and several doctors. The students examine the patients making use of their medical training and practice. Then patients go on to the doctor for consultation and prescriptions, which are dispensed at the provisional pharmacy. The medicines and medical equipment are donated by pharmaceutical companies.

For the people in the local villages Kimlea Clinic has solved multiple problems. For example, when employees fall ill they have to give their employer a doctor’s letter before they are entitled to sick leave. When people cannot afford a medical consultation, they often have to carry on working when sick. “They are obsessed with work,” explains Kimlea director Francesca Gikandi, “getting another few shillings, regardless of their state of health. They can’t afford the luxury of thinking how they feel, even if they are very sick.” Now they can go for a medical consultation at Kimlea Clinic, and everyone who needs it is give a doctor’s letter specifying how many days they should take off work. When necessary they are hospitalized. That is what happened to Sarah Mairura, who wrote to Kimlea: “I want to thank you personally for the help given by your mobile clinic at Maramba, and especially for the way it helped me. They got me into Nazareth Hospital where I had an operation and got better. I have now gone back to work at Menengai Farmers. Words cannot express my gratitude, but I hope that God will bless you in the future and for ever…”

Health education is an essential part of the Clinic’s work. Students use their medical training to educate the villagers on health matters such as HIV/Aids, healthcare for pregnant women, nutrition, and environmental and occupational health hazards.

The villagers’ steady growth in knowledge and understanding of healthcare has increased their sense of personal worth and led to improved hygiene. For the medical students, working at the Clinic has given them a wonderful chance to contribute to the welfare of others and to realize that, as the spirit of the Gospel teaches, “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” As Saint Josemaría put it, “I myself measure the sincerity of concern for others in terms of deeds of service, and I know of thousands of cases of students in many countries who have refused to build their own little private worlds. Instead, they are giving themselves to others through their professional work, which they try to carry out with human perfection, through educational, social and welfare activities, in a spirit of youth and cheerfulness.”