Until last year there was not a single doctor on Rusinga Island in Kenya, but now Slovak doctors at the health-care centre on the island are able to treat about 900 patients a month. The Slovak civic association Narovinu has achieved this with a project that won a subsidy of almost €190,000 from the official development assistance programme SlovakAid. The project is intended to curb the local mortality rate and provide qualified health care to locals, with a focus on children, women and HIV/AIDS patients, as well as people suffering from malaria and spotted fever.
Eva Hlavatá from Narovinu said that the Slovaks have completed infrastructure in the community centre, built a house for doctors, and have been operating a healthcare facility there since March 2010, providing basic medical services for 10,000 inhabitants of the island, the SITA newswire reported. Children aged up to 15 make up more than half of the island's population. The most frequent diseases on the island are malaria, diarrhoea, tuberculosis, HIV and gastro-intestinal diseases. Doctors in the centre also assist with births, and vaccinate and organise preventive checks of pupils from local schools.
They also develop educational activities among local people. Narovinu has won a subsidy that will enable it to maintain the operation of the health-care centre on Rusinga Island for two more years. They also plan to build an orphanage and an irrigation system in the garden of a community centre.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
