Blog Archives

Our First Doctor at Iburu Clinic

7/12/2017

We opened the Nancy Mason Memorial Clinic at Iburu in July of 2016. And since then, we have been operating with a full-time nurse and weekly visits from one of our doctors at Kateri Clinic ( more than 2 hours drive away).We were searching for a doctor who was willing to live in a rural area and to conduct mobile clinics in the remote rural villages. It is not easy to find a doctor willing to commit to these criteria. After a long search, we have finally fond a doctor who shares our vision, Dr. Abel Dahunsi.

Dr. Abel Dahunsi with Rev. Tom Furrer and Dr. Adekunle Alao, who is head of the Diocese of Kaduna Healthcare Ministry.

The Nancy Mason Memorial Clinic at Iburu is an inter-faith and international collaboration.

First of all, the land was donated by the local Muslim Village Chief to the Anglican Diocese of Kaduna with the proviso that it be used to build a medical clinic to serve the community of rural farmers who have no access to medical care locally. Several years before, the chief’s own daughter died as a result of not being able to get help in time. So he donated the land in hopes of saving other children.

Muslim village Chief who donated land

Secondly, funds were donated by the family of the late Nancy Mason to build the clinic. Nancy was a nurse in Connecticut for many years prior to her death from cancer. When she was a young woman, she wanted to be a missionary nurse but marriage and children changed her plans. Her family felt that this missionary health clinic would be an appropriate way to honor her memory.

Nancy Mason Memorial Clinic sign

Thirdly, when we hosted this outreach in July, we realized that the clinic would not be large enough to host all of the people we would serve. So, we asked for help from the pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church which is right next door to the clinic. He gladly agreed to help and we used the church for our triage team, eye clinc, dental clinic and prayer teams.

Photo of Sacred Heart Church with Triage teams

0 Comments

The People We Serve

7/11/2017

0 Comments

We served everyone from the very young (our youngest patients were 2 days old) to the very old (our oldest patient was over 100 – no one is sure of his exact age but his oldest son is 90).

Two day old twins. Our youngest patients.

We served hundreds of mothers and their children with a whole host of childhood diseases, most commonly malaria

Our oldest patient over 100 years old.

We served lots of children, some accompanied by their parents; some who were street urchins who had no parents.

0 Comments

Medical Outreach Mission

7/10/2017

0 Comments

July 10 – 21 , 2017

Successful Medical Mission at Kateri Ckinic and Iburu Clinic Despite Serious Security Challenges

Crowd of people waiting to receive medical care at Kateri

From July 10 through 21, Kateri Medical Services partnered with the Anglican Diocese of Kaduna to conduct two intensive medical outreach events at our clinics in Kateri and Iburu. Despite the most difficult security challenges hwe have ever experienced, we were able to serve 4,695 people with medical care.

Crowd waiting for medical care at Iburu

American team

A small American Team of five was joined by a much larger team of 40 volunteer doctors , nurses, eye specialists, dentists and counseling teams from Kaduna Diocese and local teaching hospitals in Jos and Zaria. All together, we served 4,695 people in two different locations. More than 400 people received some form of eye care including 300 who received eye glasses. The surgical team performed 116 surgeries. The dental team helped 200 people with various forms of dental care, including tooth extractions. The prayer and counseling teams served more than 3,000 people with a variety of spiritual and relational issues. The health education team gave basic health and hygien instruction to all of our patients.

Eye Care team at work: