News

Engos Clinic Expands

October 12, 2009

Engos Clinic remains one of AMS’s foremost ongoing projects. Since openly permanently in Dec. 2008, it has grown consistently, providing services to thousands of patients this year. In September, after a major outbreak of measles among children in rural Kenya, AMS cooperated with the government to host an emergency clinic during which hundreds of children were immunized at Engos.

The children didn’t exactly enjoy themselves, and they may have wished for the days when needles were unknown in Trans Mara, but the looks of relief on the mothers’ faces—and the determination with which they held their little ones in place to receive their immunization shot demonstrated that understanding is growing among the Maasai that the clinic’s services are here to protect them and make their lives better.

AMS is glad to report that more and more women are letting go of traditional Maasai birth practices, many of which are unsanitary and unsafe, and coming to the clinic to give birth. Already this year, nearly a hundred babies have been delivered in the clinic.

Most memorable was a set of high-risk triplets that were born safely in August. Of course, nobody knew it was triplets. The second baby presented in the breech position, at which point the doctor discovered there was more than one still to be born. He managed to turn the second baby, deliver it safely and welcome the third to the astonishment of the birth mother. The next day relatives were already there helping care for the two new girls and one new boy, two of whom would most likely have died had this birth occurred in the bush, and the mother as well.

Success stories like these go a long way toward encouraging the Maasai to take advantage of the modern medical services offered at the clinic, though by now they need little encouragement: lately they’ve been urging AMS to expand in-order to accommodate more patients. Recently another nurse was hired in response to the growing patient load, as people from farther and farther away travel to Engos for the compassionate, quality health care they know they will receive here.

Future goals for the clinic include a major expansion project currently slated for January through March. A small staff duplex will be built on-site and the existing staff facility, designed to serve as a ward, will finally revert to its original purpose, creating space for eight extra inpatient beds. This will allow the current six-bed inpatient ward to become the dedicated maternity space for which it was designed. Isolating birth mothers and their infants from other, infectious patients will greatly increase the comfort and safety of everyone staying in the clinic.

Toward this same end, AMS hopes to build a sanitation block, which will provide flush toilets and hot showers to the patients via a solar-powered pump and water heater. In addition, plans are underway to incorporate an HIV/AIDS care and prevention program at the clinic, an absolute necessity in this area of Kenya. Currently, HIV patients in our community must travel up to 50 kilometers to receive HIV-specific care, an impossible distance, and AMS is eager to provide an alternative. Priority will also be given to preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission.

The possibilities are endless! AMS is excited to undertake these projects at the clinic and to improve the already revolutionary health care the Maasai now have access to at Engos.