Village Health Centers

To give you a better idea of where I live, let me explain the difference between Arua, Kuluva, and a local village.  (Pictures will come later - the internet is slow right now.)

Arua is a town – it has many shops, offices, banks, restaurants, hotels, etc.  There is also a big outdoor market (like a flea market) where I buy kitchen items (utensils, plates, etc.) and food – I only buy produce, but there are also numerous butcher’s stands.

Kuluva is a trading center – there are about 9 tiny shops (dukas) that sell water, bread, eggs, etc.  It’s a very minimal selection.  There is also a “market” spot where several women sit all day under a tree selling their vegetables.  It’s right outside the hospital compound, and I go there frequently.  The main (paved) road from Kampala to Arua is the only road through Kuluva’s trading center.  And there are many trading centers along this road, so you have to keep an eye out for the right stop, when taking public transit.  Even when the Minister of Education came to visit the school, he drove right past Kuluva and didn’t even realize it.

A village is far off the main road – you usually have to drive down the rocky, dirt roads to get to a village.  A village consists of several grass huts, and there might be a church, a borehole, a health center, and/or a few dukas.  Sometimes there is nothing but a few grass huts; villages are pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

Arua has a hospital – a big one.  Kuluva has a hospital, although most trading centers don’t.  Kuluva’s hospital was built around 1970, so it’s old and ill equipped.  A few villages have health centers (clinics), but limited means to get to a hospital.  Many villages are so far out in the bush that people suffer from basic health issues (e.g. injuries, infections, etc.) because they have no way of treating them. 

Nursing schools send the students to do a semester of community outreach at the village health centers.  A few weeks ago, Sister Anne, Dr. Anne, Jimmy, and I went looking for potential community outreach sites in nearby villages. 

Some notable comparisons between healthcare in the US and healthcare in Uganda:

• The US has posters to promote healthy eating and exercise – Uganda has the poster “Facts About Ebola.”
• People in the US often complain about waiting to see the doctor – A lot of times in the village health centers, there is no doctor.  There is only 1 nurse and 1 midwife to see over 100 patients a day!
• In the US, there are flu outbreaks – In Uganda, there is a village near DR Congo that still gets outbreaks of The Plague.  Yes . . . The Plague.
• Hospital food in the US is not very good – In a Ugandan hospital, there is no food.  Patients have to bring their own food, water, toilet paper, bedding (pillows, sheets, blankets), etc.
• In US hospitals, there’s a maternity ward, a children’s ward, intensive care unit, etc. – Kuluva Hospital has all of those wards too, but also a leprosy ward.  In fact, Kuluva started as treatment center for leprosy and later became a regional hospital (and training center).  There are actually still a good number of patients with leprosy at Kuluva and the nursing students visit them as part of the disability/rehabilitation outreach.

 

(Pharmacy at Opia Health Center - Notice the yellow Ebola poster on the wall.)

Don’t worry Mom & Dad – I’m not working on the wards.  I’ll be going with the nursing school students to the villages to check out clean water sources, schools for the deaf and blind, and occupational health sites (workplace safety demonstrations).  I’m really excited to go out into the community with the students – this is what I imagined when I signed up for the Peace Corps.