Big picture of what we're doing: We're working at the main referral clinic in this half of the country that starts kids and adolescents (0-19) on HIV meds. Wonderful that word has spread, but it means after 7 years, the place is bursting at it seams with patients.
One of my jobs is building capacity at smaller clinics on outskirts of Bulawayo to take on all the pediatric HIV patients that are doing well so when we leave- the main central clinic is not overwhelmed. Meetings monthly with the Bulawayo City Council- which runs these 19 peripheral clinics- to propose more decentralized clinics and talk about how this will happen. The internal politics- like anywhere- is very complicated. Who will do the labs? How much will they get paid? What if they’re overwhelmed?
What keeps us going is how happy these families are once they arrive at the smaller local clinics. Rather than spending a whole day of waiting with hundreds of others in a vast waiting room- they converse with the 6-7 other families and are done with everything within an hour. Knowing that this legacy will hopefully continue when we leave makes all the hard work that much easier.
One of my jobs is building capacity at smaller clinics on outskirts of Bulawayo to take on all the pediatric HIV patients that are doing well so when we leave- the main central clinic is not overwhelmed. Meetings monthly with the Bulawayo City Council- which runs these 19 peripheral clinics- to propose more decentralized clinics and talk about how this will happen. The internal politics- like anywhere- is very complicated. Who will do the labs? How much will they get paid? What if they’re overwhelmed?
What keeps us going is how happy these families are once they arrive at the smaller local clinics. Rather than spending a whole day of waiting with hundreds of others in a vast waiting room- they converse with the 6-7 other families and are done with everything within an hour. Knowing that this legacy will hopefully continue when we leave makes all the hard work that much easier.
