Ukimwi Klinika

13 October 2009

Today was our second day at St. Elizabeth Hospital, but really our first day of being able to observe and interact with doctors and patients. We spent the day in the CTC, which is what they call their HIV clinic. It is in a small separate building next to the hospital, and it had a separate waiting room and doctors offices, which is nice so that the patients don’t have to feel embarrassed to be there. The clinic is also for people who already know that they are positive and are coming back for check ups and treatment.

We spent the day with Dr. Robby, who was really great. He seemed young, but knowledgeable and friendly toward the patients. He also had a lot of questions for us about HIV in the states, which was cool to talk about and compare the two places. They are indeed VERY different! We struggled a bit since everything was in Swahili, but Dr. Robby translated a lot of it for us during or after the patient visits.

There was a lot of things I wanted to write about, but they are not all very well related, so I am just going to write them down in bullet points…

-The clinic normally sees 80-90 patients per day, with the patients normally coming once per month for check-ups.

-They have pretty strict requirements for putting people on ARV’s here. You must be physically ill (which they call clinically eligible) and also have less than 200 CD4’s to be put on meds. The doctor couldn’t believe that we start people on ARV’s right after they test positive in the states.

-All the treatment and drugs for HIV patients is free, along with the doctor visit. It is all paid for by an organization called EGPAF (Elizabeth Glaza something AIDS Foundation). The inpatient care is also partially cared for, but they do have to pay for their bed and for their IV drugs.

-One young guy came in today who had a CD4 count of 55, but since he was not showing any clinical symptoms (illness) he was still not put on ARV’s. I was floored. He was also engaged to be married soon, but still had not told his finance his status. I think the doctor kindly suggested that he do that…Tanzanians are a very polite and soft spoken group of people.

-We saw three small children come in today who were positive. One of them was by himself and looked like he had come from school. He complained of severe stomach pain and cried through most of the visit.

I handled the clinic today better than I had expected, also. I am not quite sure what to think of everything yet, but am just trying to absorb everything and learn as much as I can about HIV here. So much to soak in. That’s it for today.

(The picture is of the waiting room at St. Elizabeth's where the pediatrician and the pharmacies are.)

Written by Whitney