I have been travelling for the last three weeks with Boris, a friend of mine from Germany. We had the most amazing time. We climbed Mt. Meru, went for a day to Amboseli National Park in Kenya, returned to Arusha to go to Manyara NP, Serengeti NP and the Ngorongoro Crater. What a beautiful part of the world. The climax was to climb Kilimanjaro and it took as a week, but we made it in gale force wind and freezing temperatures to Uhuru Peak, the summit. I am still taken away by the beauty of East Africa. In the meantime, we stopped at the Longido medical center, which became inofficially the district hospital, because there is no other bigger heath center. However, the condition of this "hospital" is very poor (see photos!)and they are caught in a vicious cycle.
They cannot become officially a hospital because of the insufficient infrastructure and the lack of an operation theater and intensive care unit. The government is also pulling away the only medical doctor due to the fact that he cannot perform surgeries under these conditions, etc. What happened in Longido is, a new district was formed, yet no money is available to upgrade the hospital. Without being officially a hospital, they do not get sufficient supplies from the government. They treat an average 70 patients a day and the facility is barely more than a dispensary. It is also located on the main road to Arushaand.
Bad traffic accidents occur very frequently, but Longido "hospital" is not setup at all to perform surgeries. The only way out of this viscous cycle is to upgrade this facility to get hospital status, or the very least, to build an intensive care unit for surgeries, so that an MD is allowed to stay to serve about 100,000 Maasai within the district. Again, any help is highly appreciated! I am thinking about involving the Engineers Without Borders for construction and extension of the hospital. I am back in motion for my projects and will keep you updated about the progress. I also agreed to help out to establish a children home inArusha/Tanzania.All the best from Kenya,
Michael
