Our clinic days program is such an amazing program that we happen to reach out to a number of children and adolescents. Doctor Fred is our medical team leader, he is so passionate, welcoming, and picks much interest in children/ adolescent health.
Doctor Fred leads the WESHARE medical team that works with Kajjansi Health center IV children’s HIV clinic as well as the adolescent club.
The clinic days program is one of the Heart-felt and lovely missions we do to reach out to youths, those children living with HIV/AIDs as well as disadvantaged Adolescents young mothers. It’s organized at various Child centers in various hospitals. At these clinics, we get to know of the untold and touching stories of how these children contracted HIV/AIDs and how they survive in a positive living.
Most of them nearly present to the HIV clinic with an end-stage progression of HIV and at the verge of death, some of these are orphans surviving with their grandparents and in great need, they are helped and started on antiviral medication. The antenatal care units are points where we identify the adolescent young mothers, some of whom are underprivileged, most of these psychologically more tortured especially from their own or their communities due to having fallen victim to early pregnancy at tender ages (in most of our African communities), some of these can’t even afford the requirements by the time of delivery.
Every pregnant woman/ mother must have a mama kit at the time of delivery, and if you don’t have it, normally you are turned away till you have it. (a mama kit is a sterile delivery package containing cotton wool, cord ligatures, gloves, baby simple cloths, sterile blade). You find that by the time of delivery most men who impregnate these young girls have already disowned these pregnancies “think of this young girl yet to go through the very painful labor pains, her being the mother and father in addition to her psychological torture since she bared this pregnancy”.
What we do at the clinic days??
• Adolescent counseling and guidance
• Dispensing ARVs
• Sexual and reproductive health awareness
• Dispensing mama-kits
• VBS
• Games and entertainment
• Surprise parties (Birthday celebrations, Christmas parties)
• Storytelling
• Candy
• Serving porridge.
• Health education
A lot entails teenage pregnancies most of which are unplanned pregnancies, defilement among other mishappenings contributing to this. If you didn’t know, the medical attention and treatment at all government facilities are free of charge, but due to the overwhelming numbers of patients that flood these facilities day after day, the demands supersede the supply as a result there is usually a stock-outs for drugs, therefore most of these patients have to buy such items before they are worked on (e.g; gloves, syringes, intravenous catheters, plasters, bandage, iv medications).
It is usually heartbreaking when it comes to maternity centers, every pregnant woman must have a delivery kit/ mama kit (a mama kit is a sterile delivery package containing cotton wool, cord ligatures, gloves, baby simple cloths, sterile blade), government facilities are usually in stock-outs that no mother can be helped, it’s quite really hard for a woman to deliver without it.
It’s quite heartbreaking that some of these women without a mama kit face the harshness of the midwives, to some other fellow women (those who are quite deep-hearted) have to contribute some money ward to ward or nearby attendants/ caretakers, then they can buy the requirements equivalent to those in a mama kit for those women with nothing, to some end up pushing a baby unattended to due to not having a mama kit, this causes a lot more panic in the delivery rooms, to some others succumb to death due to over bleeding after birth “Post-Partum Hemorrhage”, as well as other pregnancy-related complications during the time of giving birth contributing to the high maternal mortality rates.- quote the recent maternal mortality rate due to PPH).
The clinic days is one of our heart-felt missions to extend our stewardship and restore hope to the hopeless, working with Adolescents counselors, Health workers, social workers, psychologists, spiritual leaders (Reverends, care group leaders), Adolescent volunteers/peers as well as community leaders.