Sunday, April 7, is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Health Day with the theme: “My health, my right” aiming to address the health challenges caused by a myriad of ways from diseases and disasters, to conflicts causing death, pain, hunger and psychological distress, as well as the burning of fossil fuels which “is simultaneously driving the climate crisis and taking away our right to breathe clean air,” states the WHO.
“This year’s theme was chosen to champion the right of everyone, everywhere to have access to quality health services, education, and information, as well as safe drinking water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working and environmental conditions, and freedom from discrimination.”
It’s a mission we at Bread and Water for Africa® share not just through our words, but our actions, working with our grassroots healthcare partners throughout sub-Saharan Africa helping to ensure that tens of thousands every year can receive the healthcare they need to prevent illness, recover from diseases and injuries, and in many cases even save lives through the medical treatment they receive at free clinics we support.
Thanks to our supporters across the U.S., every year for decades we have been able to provide essential medicines, medical supplies and equipment to save lives and support the operations of clinics and hospitals in remote villages, as well as provide cash grants to refurbish decrepit medical buildings, and most recently, to provide funding to support a mobile medical clinic in Malawi.
In 2023 alone, our healthcare partners reported that collectively, more than 92,000 individuals were served in 45 hospitals and clinics in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Sierra Leone with cash grants, medicines, medical supplies and equipment, wheelchairs, and more.
For example, in Malawi, our partner the Our AIM Foundation (OAF) operates its free mobile clinic in villages such as Mseka, which is located in an extremely “hard-to-reach area due to poor road infrastructure,” notes OAF.
“Mseka has no health center and the villagers and those living surrounding the village must travel a long distance to access medical services,” states OAF, which took its mobile clinic to the village where they received medical examinations “and were prescribed and provided with free medications and treatment.
“By the end of the day, our health professionals assisted 200 patients, including 27 with malaria, representing 13.5 percent of the assisted patients,” OAF reported.
Among them last year was a young mother who brought her 4-year-old daughter, who had been coughing for three straight days and experiencing a fever for a week, to an OAF clinic for an examination, reported OAF Country Manager Joseph Phiri.
“She was diagnosed with pneumonia and provided with a prescription of IV antibiotics, antipyretics (a type of medication to reduce fever) and fluids,” he told us. “An hour later, the child was responding well to the medications and later on she was discharged with oral antibiotics together with antipyretics,
“The mother was very happy seeing her daughter in good condition,” he added.
In Sierra Leone, Joseph Kobba, program director of our partner, Rural Youth Development Organization (RYDO) which partners 13 healthcare facilities in rural communities, reported that in most cases, medicines and medical supplies are unavailable and the nurses who run the facilities must purchase medicines at local pharmacies “if they are available.”
However, Joseph added that, “With the donation of medicines by MAP International in collaboration with Bread and Water for Africa®, there has been a vast improvement in the treatment of the patients who visit our health facilities.
“The incidence of maternal mortality, child mortality, morbidity, dehydration, malnutrition rates and infections diseases has been reduced,” says Joseph.
And as for all of us at Bread and Water for Africa® that is the best news we could hear – especially on this World Health Day!
