Watoto construction partnership

We have recently employed Watoto builders from Kampala to do some carpentry and fitting out of our theatre.  This was completed and we have been happy with the quality of their work.  So we have given them the go ahead to fit out our reception area and some cupboards in our consulting rooms.  This will be completed before Christmas.

We are hopeful that Watoto Construction Ltd , based in Kampala , will have a future role to play in the construction of our Yotkom Maternal and Child health facility.

Architects and Service providers from Finland have been collaborating with Watoto and also gleaning lots of information and feedback from the community and our Yotkom medical team , to help with future design.
We had an all day work shop this week with Veronica, Mariana and Ivan from Finland and it was a lot of fun and very informative.

Orom Medical outreach

Last Thursday Yotkom sent its first team out to Orom a small town about 1 and a half hours drive from Kitgum.  There are about 30,000 people in this area but no doctor.  There is a small govt. clinic run by a nurse but supplies and services are limited.  Now that we have our own vehicle for transport we are hoping to take a health team to Orom every Thursday.  We will do this as a 3 month trial initially. We are renting a small local building for this medical outreach and taking our own staff and medical supplies.  Our team consists of a doctor and or a clinical officer, nurse, laboratory technician, admin assistant and driver.  There is a small fee for service as this is the only way we can cover our costs and make this clinic sustainable.

  Last week our staff saw about 90 patients.  Andrew was very tired after a 12 hour day.  Some referrals were also made.  One mother , after seeing the team last week, brought her child to the Yotkom clinic in Kitgum for treatment as advised.  This 1 year old little girl had a bone infection in her L leg and the resulting weakness in the bone had caused the bone to fracture.  The child was unable to weight bear on this leg and there was some resulting shortening of the leg.  This was diagnosed on x-ray at our Yotkom facility.  The child has been admitted as an inpatient for treatment and hopefully the infection will respond to antibiotic treatment and allow the bone to heal.  Our orthopaedic clinical officer James has a lot of expertise in this area and we have been thankful to have him join our staff recently.

Yotkom Maternal and Child Health services coming closer

Andrew and I (Anne) have been in Kitgum now for a few weeks.  When we arrived we were happy to see our staff working well, the clinic clean and tidy and many of the policy and procedures that we have put in place being followed.

We have three visitors from Finland here helping us at the moment. Mariana is an architect who is completing her masters degree and together with Ivan ,an interior designer ,will draw up plans for building a future Child and Maternal health facility.  Veronica works for a non for profit organisation 

called (m4id) who are specialising in providing services for maternal facilities in resource poor settings.

So in the last week they have been busy running workshops and gathering information, interviewing women who have recently delivered, and visiting some of the current facilities available in Kitgum and an outlying village facility.

The needs in the maternity area here are great and the community have been asking us if we could provide a facility for them to receive quality and compassionate maternal services.  The average Ugandan woman has 7 children so there is a substantial need for health services in this area.

Veronica returns to Finland today, with Mariana and Ivan staying for another two weeks to begin the preliminary plans and to further liaise with Yotkom staff during this process.  We thank them for their time and expertise which they are giving free of charge towards the Yotkom project.

Building the quality of our health services

We are currently spending time together in teaching and training and building up the quality of health services provided at Yotkom Medical Centre.
Dr Andrew Wright, Yotkom Australian Director  , and Matthew Durden , final year medical student from James Cook University, Queensland have been attending ward rounds and seeing outpatients alongside our Ugandan clinicians. There continue to be many cases of Malaria. Other infectious diseases and cases of trauma are also common.  The clinic is becoming increasingly busy.
There are good opportunities for teaching and mentoring.

We have a good emergency room for acute cases and this is often used for resuscitating patients who present with advanced disease. Many people delay coming to a doctor till they are extremely unwell because of distance and costs and sometimes firstly using traditional medicines. This makes it very challenging for our doctors and nurses to save lives especially in a resource poor setting where modern investigations and treatments are not available. Despite these difficulties we are seeing many people healed and it's very satisfying to receive their thanks and smiles for the care received , as they head back to their homes .

Yotkom is also exploring ways we can become involved in rural outreach as the level of poverty and sickness in these outlying districts is significant. We have had meetings with the Orom community, approximately 100 km from here .

Yotkom Medical Centre OPENING Video

Gateway Baptist Church has released a short 3 minute video , sharing about the Yotkom story and  showing footage of the recent opening ceremony .
This was attended by Pastor Jason Elsmore and other Australian guests.
It was a wonderful time of exuberant celebration and thankfulness  to God for all that has happened over the past few years .
We are thankful  also to everyone of our supporters and partners who have played a part in this story .
Please continue on the journey with us.



Yotkom Medical Centre opening video April 2016

Thankyou to Nick Paton for the filming and editing.

Official opening ceremony. Yotkom Medical Centre

It has been six months since the Yotkom Medical Centre started serving the community and  treating the sick of Kitgum community.
On the 9 th April 2016 we held an official opening ceremony.

Local officials attended and community representatives as well as 17 Australian  citizens.
We really appreciated our friends travelling all this way to share the joyful day with us .
We all enjoyed some traditional Acholi singing and dancing presented by the community here.

The pastor of Gateway Baptist Church ,Jason Elsmore, helped Andrew and Anne Wright with the official opening duties.

Gateway Church have been one of our key partners and supporters.

Other guests included Dr Michael Burke from Healthserve Australia

And leaders and students from the South Sudan Clinical Officer training school , Jonglei..joined in the celebrations.

Our Yotkom medical clinic team looked very smart in their new uniforms .

Ultrasound Service commences at Yotkom

After a long wait we were excited today to take delivery of a new ultrasound machine.
This will really benefit our patients and help improve our capacity to make correct diagnosis.
Thankyou to kind donors in Australia who gave specifically for this purpose.

Meanwhile as we prepare for our opening ceremony we are reminded that we battle constantly against dust in this environment. It gets into everything !

Pat holdsworth, a highly skilled paramedic from Australia is taking a series of lectures with our medical staff on resuscitation and trauma management.