The end

The sun is setting over Kampala as I write this, I am sitting in the hotel garden enjoying a cold beer, and mulling over my visit.

Uganda is a country of contrasts, hot, noisy and dusty. In  Kamapala the streets are a swarming with people, cars and motorbikes. The roads are lined with people living in the most basic accommodation, selling anything and everything to survive. Large houses are visible everywhere, mingling cheek by jowl with these shacks. Poverty along side wealth, modern civilisation along side something more akin to the medieval times. And then there's the depravation we saw in camparingisi and the Alcholi people, a whole different level of poverty and need.

Today I spent time at the Dental school where they teach the three year diploma students (similar to our dental therapists). The staff were charming and proud of their clinics and achievements, but with only 11 students qualifying a year the demand far outstretches the supply.

We need to appreciate what we have, and not to take our medical and dental services for granted.

Barlison Dental Clinic, Maya

26th & 27th February

This morning John, from Link, came to collect me to take me to his project, the Mary Ann clinic and Barlison Dental Clinic in Maya. The clinic is located in a rural location 15 minutes down a dirt track of the main Kampala to Rwanda highway. John's vision is to provide medical and dental care for the local community, as well as establish a centre of excellence as plans for new housing in the area come to completion. He is hoping that eventually the clinic will provide paid services to a more middle class population, allowing him to be able offer subsidised care to the rural communities. Uganda is a country of contrasts with large affluent houses mingling side by side with what can best be described as the shacks which provide accommodation for the less well off, who survive on subsistence farming.

Part of John's projects is to help provide sustainable energy sources for these communities, and the clinic is powered by solar panels for electricity, bio gas to produce methane from the clinics two cows and water harvested from the roof. It works well, to a point, unfortunately dental equipment requires more electricity than he is currently able to provide form his inverter, and so this either needs to be uprated, or supplemented with a small generator to allow for more than extractions.

The bricks for the clinic, and the new maternity block he is currently building, have all been made by volunteers from the soil dug for the foundations and water tanks. The soil is compressed into bricks  in a hand press and then dried in the sun. They are not fired in a kiln, a common practice seen along the roadsides of all Ugandan roads. John's bricks also interlock, so there is no need for cement.

Currently all he has is a dental clinic, fitted with a Dentaid chair. He has a self contained portable dental unit supplying suction, scaler and drill, as well as an amalgam mixer and light curing unit. Unfortunately without more power he is mainly limited to extractions and simple fillings. John is not a dentist, so he employs a dentist from the teaching hospital on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. We saw three patients on each of the two days I was the, so I fear he has a long way to go to reach his dream, especially with the typical African lack of urgency. If it happens it will be a great resource, I wish him luck.

Sterilisation Uganda style

X

The Barlison Dental clinic in Maya is a purpose built building which is slowly being developed by the Link Charity to provide medical and maternity care to the local rural community. Thanks to Dentaid it has a dental surgery, and thanks to Dentaid the means to sterilise instruments!

So where, I hear you ask, does the gas come from to heat the pressure cooker?

Well...........

Q

Biogas.

The cows eat grass and that produces poo.

The poo goes down the chute into the bio digester, and that produces gas....

And that gets piped to the clinic, the waste from the bio digester then gets used to fertilize the land, to grow the grass, to feed the cows, to produce the..........well you get the picture!

Oh and by the way the cows produce milk which is sold, and the money pays the man who looks after the cows........'simples'

The Acholi clinics

24th & 25th February

Yesterday we moved from the Mildmay hospital to the Sky Hotel in the Ntinda district of north Kamapala, and this morning (Monday) set off the the Alcholi community. The Alcholi people come from north Uganda on the border with Sudan, but due the the violence in that area have moved to the outskirts of Kampala. Many of them work in a nearby quarry, breaking up rocks into smaller piece for use as hardcore. 

We set up our clinic in a hall which served as a community centre. Five dental chairs, five Dentaid dentists, and four Ugandan colleagues. On each day we saw around 80 patients between us for pain relief, mainly extractions, but the occasional small filling as well. We also provided some oral health education to the many children who seem to accumulate wherever we show up.

The spirit in the clinics is amazing, the banter and camaraderie has to be experienced, one colleague said it felt like being in a scene fro M.A.S.H and in a way it was. No egos, everyone just out to help. I feel privileged to have been apart of it. Sadly the rest of my team have moved on as they are staying in Uganda longer than me, and are moving out into rural areas further north west. I will be spending my final three days at the Miya clinic. I will miss them and wish them luck, they are a great bunch of people.

 

Sterilisation?

......and our sterilisation suite, eat your heart out CQC!

Waiting room

And here's the waiting room!

Blue Dentaid chairs

So you want to know what we do with the chairs?