Port Harcourt Clinic

St. Thomas Clinic in Port Harcourt

Serving Full-time, 365 days a year, since 2019.

In 2019, we served 1,280 at our regular clinic and 1,352 at our one-week free medical outreach for a total of 2,632.

History

In October 2018, we sponsored our first three-day free medical outreach at St. Thomas Clinic.

In 2019, we expanded our free outreach to 5 days and we raised funds from a grant from Trinity Episcopal Church in Wethersfield and the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut to purchase all of the lab equipment for the new clinic.

In 2020, we will be assisting St. Thomas in funding staff and equipment to expand the reach of the clinic to provide healthcare to undeserved rural areas in villages on the outskirts of Port Harcourt. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with St. Thomas Clinic.

Partnership

We first met Dr. Olaniyi when he served as our head doctor at Kateri Medical Clinic from 2008 to 2013. After getting married to Kehinde, they relocated to Port Harcourt because of her employment opportunities (which were non-existent in Kateri).

In their new home, they resolved to start a medical clinic with the same vision as Dr. Olaniyi had experienced in Kateri: to provide simple, decent and afford- able medical care for urban and rural poor people.

With all of our partnerships, we require “skin in the game” from local partners. They must contribute to the purchase of land and building and operating costs of the clinics and must take full responsibility for the daily management of the clinics. In this particular case, Dr. and Mrs. Olaobaju have invested heavily to purchase the land and building and had completely renovated the structure before Kateri Medical Services entered the partnership in 2018.

With our latest partnership, we are trying a new model. In our other four clinics, we have worked together with a Bishop and Diocese of the Anglican Church to build and run medical clinics. In this case, we have partnered with an individual doctor - Rev. Dr. Olaniyi Olaobaju and his wife - Kehinde Olaobaju who are the owners of the clinic. Dr. Olaniyi is both a medical doctor and a priest in the Diocese of Niger Delta North.

His wife, Kehinde is a petrochemical engineer who is employed by the Port Harcourt Re- fining Company.