Healthcare
The George Mudenyo Kadima Medical Centre, opened in 2016, offers lifesaving health care in the heart of Musanda treating over 11,000 patients and safely delivers nearly 500 babies a year.
Why we set up a medical centre?
Healthcare in Kenya is not free which means that often families avoid seeking necessary medical attention until it’s too late. We are fundraising to increase the number of families covered by The Nasio Trust National Hospital Insurance Fund to ensure all family members can receive free treatment for just £4 per month.
As an organisation, we are deeply committed to community-led health. This means ensuring our communities hold real decision making power in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects – and this is especially true in health matters.
Readily accessible healthcare saves lives. The tragic and potentially avoidable death of our supported child Livingstone was a key driver in the creation of the medical centre. You can read his story here.
Services Offered:
The GMK Medical Centre operates 24-hours a day, providing emergency/critical treatment for injury and illness, preventive care, health education, reproductive health care, vaccinations immunisations and maternity services. It also offers free HIV testing and psychosocial support for those who are HIV positive.
Mothers and babies receive free services (including vital childhood vaccinations for babies) and post-natal care.
Prioritising the role of Our Medical Team and community health workers in the COVID-19 response
Our medical centre has been at the forefront of COVID-19 sensitisation – making sure the community stays safe throughout the pandemic. Through this hub we have reached and sensitised over 50,000 people with door-to-door COVID-19 education, translating information into local languages, emphasizing the importance of handwashing and other good hygiene practices.
Our medical team have been fundamental in bringing key partners together such as; the Ministry of Health and The Red Cross, as well as other NGO’s and the Kenyan government. This has extended our ability to sensitise hard-to-reach groups, like street boys, the deaf community and women.
A wonderful side-effect of the increased attention to hygiene has been up to a 90% reduction in waterborne diseases treated at the medical centre.
Even though the number of deaths in Kenya from COVID-19 has remained low, the impacts of the pandemic have been catastrophic for the poor, marginalised rural Mumias West region. The pandemic exacerbated existing problems of poverty, poor health, and hunger, child abuse, child labour and high school dropout rates due to teenage pregnancies. We continue to support and sensitise communities to minimise this impact as much as possible.
At the centre we regularly check for common illnesses and infections such as jiggers, malaria and ringworm, and then offer those affected by these conditions prompt treatment. We also help protect the community by providing vaccinations such as malaria for children under 5. If we are unable to cater for the needs of those with more serious illnesses or ailments, we arrange transportation to the nearest hospital.
We provide malnourished children with a special diet consisting of spirulina which is produced by Nasio staff and volunteers.
We provide malnourished children with a special diet consisting of spirulina kindly funded by KOA. We have also used the medical centre as a hub to distribute dietary supplements.
We run medical clinics and work closely with Community Health Volunteers to raise awareness on the importance of seeking professional health services within the community.
The Nasio Trust offers trainee medical professionals the opportunity to come and volunteer at our medical centre as an opportunity to share learnings on tropical medicine with our medical team. We offer medical electives for those training to become doctors, nurses and midwives, providing an experience of advanced illnesses that would not be experienced in the developed world.
Below you can see a summary of the conditions treated by the medical centre, as well as some of the fantastic achievements that have undertaken.
