November 18

This week, I continue to gather information for the needs assessment of the hospital by meeting with the department heads of Accounting, Nursing, the Coordinator for HIV/AIDS, Principal Hospital Administrator and the Chief Medical Officer.

There are a number of projects and initiatives that are in various stages of development and implementation. The unfortunate situation is that each of the projects have been halted due to the lack of project funding. One project was the expansion of the maternity ward. This project started in 2008 then construction stopped in 2009 due to lack of funding. The expansion was planed to better service the community and surrounding villages. It’s estimated that Likuni’s service area has in excess of 26,000 expected mothers. Plans to redesign the Maternity ward were implemented to accommodate the increased demand. During construction parts of the ward were temporarily consolidated with other wards until the project was finished. Unfortunately these spaces have not been able to be reclaimed even though construction was halted in 2009 leaving the entire Maternity ward congested and extremely over crowded.

The other project is a proposal to start Likuni’s first outreach program. A two person team would travel approximately 20 KMs from Likuni to the district of “Masumbankhunda” and set up a clinic in a Regional Health Centre. This proposal would provide HIV/AIDS testing, dispense free AIDS medication, provide education and counseling to “PMTCT” the prevention of mother to child transmission of AIDS and palliative care. The program would also allow for the re-assimilation of HIV defaulters. A defaulter is an individual who is positive and has initially started two education and counseling sessions dealing with Basic information on HIV and nutrition after they have been identified – however they have not completed the program. The current default percentage is around 10%. Training of the staff which includes Clinical Officer, Nurse, (5) Patient Assistant has been completed and transportation has been acquired. The program will provide regular and consistent visits to the health centre to provide service for those communities to far for people to travel to Likuni. It is anticipated that the HIV testing will increase by 2 or 3 time the current level performed through the HIV clinic in Likuni Mission Hospital. Based on Likuni numbers it is expected that this centre will perform over 16,000 HIV tests which is projected to identify 1668 new positive HIV people and 89 exposed infants. This proposal was submitted approved in principle however the funding never materialized.

Below is some statistic that might be of interest to some.

2010 HIV/AIDS testing Statistics - ending October 30th

Male = 1491
Female – not pregnant = 1471

Female pregnant = 3687
Total tested = 6649
Exposed infants = 37

Positive = 693
Negative = 5915

Total = 6645

Age 0 – 17 months = 12

Age 18mo to 14 yrs = 30

Age 15yrs to 24 yrs = 201
Age 25+ = 487
Total = 730

Female 0 – 17 months = 7

Female 18mo to 14 yrs = 11

Female 15yrs to 24 yrs = 181
Female 25+ = 337

Total = 536

Male 0 – 17 months = 5
Male 18mo to 14 yrs = 19
Male 15yrs to 24 yrs = 20

Male 25+ = 150

Total 194