PRIMARY HEALTH CARE
SHUMAS provides health care assistance to rural health units benefiting a greater part of the population, in the form of drugs, and providing or extending piped water. Drugs and vital equipment to improve health and sanitation, provided by European volunteers, are supplied to Health Centres and Clinics such as at Lui, Rohvitangt'a, Kitiwum and Semeca. We are often reliant on overseas volunteers to provide replacement drugs and a large consignment was given in 2007 by Anne Dance from Canada.
Volunteer family doctor Peter Hearn, from the UK, spent 10 days treating some 355 patients at Lui Health Centre in Oku in November 2007. This village of 8000 people had never had the services of a doctor before. Dr Hearn supplied the Centre with drugs from the UK and sourced locally.
Besides these major activities, health promotion programmes on preventive medicines and primary health care are being set up in other rural communities. Our major objective is to create and/or raise awareness on diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS, polio and other communicable tropical diseases.
These programmes are having a major positive impact on many local communities.
We have already carried out preliminary studies of more than ten village health centres/maternity units and will start their construction when funds become available.
POTABLE WATER
In 2007 SHUMAS visited more that 20 communities who had applied for assistance to build or extend water supply schemes.
Starting in 2008, Anne Dance and the Rotary Club of Canada will be sponsoring some 30 such schemes over the next 3 years.
An urgent priority for the near future is to bring water supplies and toilet facilities to all the school projects which SHUMAS has undertaken so far.
HIV/AIDS MAINSTREAMING
In view of the wide range of our projects and programmes we have been encouraged to use this network to mainstream the HIV/AIDS programme.
Key components of this project:
- Educating and sensitization in our target communities on issues such as preventive measures,
- how to deal with those affected etc
- and, at the curative level, identifying those affected and infected and directing them to appropriate helping units or agencies and government department.
We have been highly successful, as many of our
FIOH - FUTURE IN OUR HANDS co-operatives have
fully incorporated this in all their meetings and actions.
