Site Update: Hope Center Clinic

The new Hope Center Clinic in Sikoro, Mali officially opened in June 2008. The incredible Dr. Annie De Groot oversees the KCA-funded clinic, and recently sent us her latest update from the field:

"A very thin woman in a yellow headscarf, who is 28 years old and who waited for over two hours to have her turn in his office today. A small child sits quietly in her lap. The doctor asks her some questions. She speaks softly, coughing as she is answering. A medical student looks at her lab results. She has 20 T cells. He asks her if she had ever been given medication before, and she says yes, but it was a long time ago, and the medicine had run out. The doctor pauses, considering what to do. Her life is in danger, but she has no money to pay for emergency treatment, and the hospital is far away...

This is a place where one in three to four children dies before the age of five, where [in our small clinic] one hundred babies are born every month, where mothers die in labor without so much as uttering a sound. This is a place where, too, a small tree of hope can take root, where green leaves can shine on slender branches, and where hope and dreams can eventually bear fruit...

We built [our clinic] to ease access to care for the hundreds of HIV seropositive patients who are living in this village of 35,000 people. We planted the clinic here at an arm's reach for the patients, like the one we saw today, because we know she will not wish to travel far for her care. We planned the clinic here for our patients because they prefer to see doctors they know will care for them. Those are the doctors who will pause for a moment when confronted with a young woman they know well, and think about her HIV infection in the context of her whole life. What would it mean for this woman, if the doctor made the decision to send her to the hospital far away on the top of the hill? Would she go there? How would she pay for her care? Who would take care of her small child? And what of the family members who would have to travel there to feed her and pay for her care? This is the context of HIV care in West Africa. These are the real barriers to good health.

Our new clinic has an infirmary where she will be able to get care. Our new clinic has a new laboratory, where we will be able to see if she has tuberculosis, and a new conference room where we will be able to plan her return to her home [only a few streets away], where we'll map out her directly observed TB treatment therapy visits, and her follow up care.

The need is great, and the cost is small. For less than $35,000, we have created a space where patients can receive the care they need right near their home. The number of HIV patients in our care has increased from less than 20 a year ago to 120 today...

Because of our work [together], a young woman, 28 years old, who has a small child to take care of, will be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. She will get better. This is no small thing to achieve, in a clinic that sits at the farthest corner of this Earth."