Health Posts

 

Health posts have been built throughout the Lago area. The first 3 were opened in March 2006 with 7 more added through the years.

 

ÒWe're expecting to start construction of the Mtumba Maternity on either the 11th or 18th of August.  That should be a 10 week project.Ó July 08

 

The local community clear the site and make bricks; the Lago Project buys cement and corrugated iron roof.

Carrying firewood for Ngoo Maternity Unit brick ovens

 

             Unloading building materials for Ngoo

 

 

ÒConstruction of a new maternity unit in Mtumba is going extremely well.  The walls are now above window level.  I gave the three employed builders (who all have a training role) an 11 week deadline (at least, I calculated their payment on the basis the building should be finished in 11 weeks and told them that's what I'd done).  There are 18 local people involved as part of the associated construction training course ÒSept 08 

 

Construction trainees building the Chigoma Health Centre

 

Each health post has a consulting room with a treatment couch, a room with a hospital bed, curtains and a wide veranda where patients can wait in the shade. Some of the health posts also act as maternity units and are slightly larger.

 

 

Bringing equipment for Ngoo from the Ilaya Ferry

 

Ò[We have just completed] the selection (by the community) of members of a support/supervisory committee for each health post (the committee's role is to ensure that drugs aren't sold illegally, the first-aiders turn up to work at the correct time, the community assists in keeping the land around the health post clean, and lots of other practical things), giving the committee some preliminary training and then being present to oversee and give further in-service training to the first-aiders during the first week after the health post opens, while they gain confidenceÓ

 

Peg
 

 

Planning the opening of the Chigoma Health Post with the health committee

 

 

 

Rt Revd Mark van Koevering, Bishop of Niassa blessing the Chigoma Health Post

 

An HIV/AIDS testing and treatment centre has been built in Metangula (southern point of the district) as a collaborative effort with the Ministry of Health and the Diocese.

ÒSlept in Metangula last night so I could see how the construction of the HIV/AIDS building we're doing there is getting on.  It's nearly finished - a huge relief as the foundations were originally built in 2006 and then we had to stop for several complex reasons.  We restarted 5 months ago, with a budget of only about 70% of what it should have been.  Not an easy project as I've kept having to pacify disgruntled workers who originally said they were willing to work for what we could afford to pay them and then began complaining once it was too late for us to stop.Ó June 08

 ÒHIV/AIDS building in Metangula we've gone over budget - Rebecca has been doing the accounting and when I asked her about a week back how much we'd gone over she couldn't tell me as she was still waiting for some of the receipts to come in, but it's a lot.  The finishing date for the painting is the 18th.  I'm so glad that project's nearly overÓ July 08