MOTHERS UNION HEALTH OUTREACH - AUGUST 2024
The Mothers Union is a powerful force for good in every Anglican Diocese in Africa. This year, we partnered with the Mother’s Union of Kafanchan Diocese to conduct a health education and prevention program in four rural areas of the diocese.
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A MESSAGE FROM REV. TOM FURRER PRESIDENT & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Dear Friends and Supporters, Since the beginning of our work 22 years ago, we have employed a hybrid approach to medical care for economically vulnerable people in Nigeria. First, medical volunteers conducted mobile clinics. Second, we have built and run full-time medical clinics to provide a more comprehensive level of care than is possible in mobile clinics. In addition to our clinic-based outreach missions, we partner with Cornerstone Health
Foundation to do monthly mobile clinics at many church locations to serve the urban and rural poor. For the past four years, we have not been able to take U.S. team members to our clinics for our
annual medical outreaches. In 2019 and 2020, the pandemic restrictions prevented U.S. members from going. Since then, the worsening security situation made it too dangerous for us to go. However, the security threat has improved in some parts of the country and we decided to try a low-key and low-visibility medical outreach at our St. Thomas Clinic in Port Harcourt. The importance of this outreach to the community cannot be overstated. It came at a time of the year when farmers experience extreme lack of financial capacity and furthermore against the backdrop of an already impoverished community, plagued by incessant killings from terrorists and bandits.
For the past two and a half years, we have been forced to eliminate our intensive medical outreach missions and mobile clinics. At first, this was due to Covid restrictions and more recently, due to increasing security problems where most of our clinics are located. However, in spite of all of these challenges, we have partnered with Cornerstone Health Foundation to conduct smaller scale outreaches, both in urban and rural areas.
During the past two and a half years, we have not been able to hold our annual intensive medical missions at our full-time clinics. First came the Covid epidemic and then security concerns arising from an increase in kidnapping, banditry, ethnic/ religious/political tensions and violence. All of our clinics in the north of Nigeria have become “no go” areas for our large-scale outreach efforts that have been so effective and fruitful in the past.
Thank you for all of your prayers and financial support for our recent medical outreach at St. Thomas Clinic in Port Harcourt Nigeria.
Like almost everyone else, the Covid pandemic has forced Kateri Medical Services to do things differently. We have been prevented from traveling to Nigeria for our annual medical outreach missions, first because of the Covid restrictions and second because of security problems. Prior to the pandemic, we were a very hands-on enterprise in terms of engaging with our local partners and in evaluating potential sites for new clinics to be built. When the Covid restrictions stopped us, we decided to find new ways to accomplish our mission. Here are three examples.
At Kateri Clinic, we have been forced to discontinue our annual medical outreach and our mobile clinics at Kateri Clinic due to violence, robbery and kidnapping activities in the area, but thankfully, we have found a partner.
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