We have become a surrogate Ambulance to the community of Gituro. Yesterday it was a girl with an abscess, today a young baby that possibly has malaria.
Since arriving back in Rwanda about May 2006, the people of this community have suffered numerous cases of malaria and other sicknesses. Most of the illness is water related, but regardless of the cause and the symptoms the people have a problem.
Unless you can afford medical and/or hospital care in this country you must rely on the (almost free) public health system. It’s a good system but you can only access the process if you have a Health Insurance Card as proof of identity and citizenship. To get a health insurance card you need to supply the Clinic with a passport sized photo. To get a photo you need access to a photographic lab, and the money to pay.
These newly returned people of Gituro, most of who were born in Tanzania, have neither. So, when the lady and her baby turned up with her baby at hospital today, (after throwing up for 40 minutes in our vehicle) the chances were that she would not be seen, and if she was she would be expected to pay.
It seems like such an easy thing to remedy, and we’re trying. Tomorrow we are going to line up the people and start taking digital photos. That’s the easy part! Then we’ll have to find a photo lab in Kigali (3 hours, 160km away) that can print photos from a digital camera card, and that is willing to do 220 of them, not so easy.
That’s the goal anyway, all kinds of things could go wrong with the plans – but for the want of a photo we must try to make integration into the Rwandan community easier on these people, not to mention access to medical care.
Since arriving back in Rwanda about May 2006, the people of this community have suffered numerous cases of malaria and other sicknesses. Most of the illness is water related, but regardless of the cause and the symptoms the people have a problem.
Unless you can afford medical and/or hospital care in this country you must rely on the (almost free) public health system. It’s a good system but you can only access the process if you have a Health Insurance Card as proof of identity and citizenship. To get a health insurance card you need to supply the Clinic with a passport sized photo. To get a photo you need access to a photographic lab, and the money to pay.
These newly returned people of Gituro, most of who were born in Tanzania, have neither. So, when the lady and her baby turned up with her baby at hospital today, (after throwing up for 40 minutes in our vehicle) the chances were that she would not be seen, and if she was she would be expected to pay.
It seems like such an easy thing to remedy, and we’re trying. Tomorrow we are going to line up the people and start taking digital photos. That’s the easy part! Then we’ll have to find a photo lab in Kigali (3 hours, 160km away) that can print photos from a digital camera card, and that is willing to do 220 of them, not so easy.
That’s the goal anyway, all kinds of things could go wrong with the plans – but for the want of a photo we must try to make integration into the Rwandan community easier on these people, not to mention access to medical care.
