Nkolonga Health Post

/ ABOUT THE ORGANISATION

Nkolonga Rural Health Post is located in Mkushi in central Zambia and serves a growing community of over 8,900 people.

Back in 1999 the organisation World Servants saw the urgent need to build a small clinic for the Nkolonga community and completed a building and staff house the following year. Seven years later, they constructed a second building and another staff house and it has operated as a government rural health post since then.

During the last 20 years the population in Nkolonga has rapidly grown to nearly 9,000 people. Sadly, there have not been funds available for maintenance of the facility and with continuous use, it is now in a very poor state.

The facility currently has no locking doors, no running water, no electrical lighting (meaning staff must deliver babies and treat patients by torch light at night), a leaking roof and broken windows and floors.

In spite of the many, many challenges, Dembo Pambwe and her dedicated team do all they can to serve the community around them with the limited resources they have available.

/ ABOUT OUR PROJECT

Dembo Pambwe is the nurse in-charge at Nkolonga and following several conversations with her and her team about the difficulties they experience serving the community from these buildings, Mission Geeks agreed to take on the challenge of transforming the health post to a place where people can seek treatment in privacy and with dignity.

We aim to tackle this project in 4 distinct stages:

Stage 1 – Renovation
Renovate the existing buildings (with the blessing of World Servants and the District Health Office) by replacing all doors and locks and installing grill gates, repairing windows and installing burglar bars, repairing electrics, repairing floors, installing ceilings, re-painting walls and raising the level of the ground outside the buildings to prevent repeated flooding in the rainy season.

Stage 2 – Solve the Lighting Problem
Install a back-up solar lighting system so that the health post will always have reliable lighting at night (even during power-cuts), both for treating patients and for security.

Stage 3 – Solve the Water Problem
Site and drill a borehole to access safe underground water and install a solar pump, tank and piping to provide clean, safe running water to the health post and to the staff houses.

Stage 4 – (The big one!) Build a Brand New Building
With the growing population the health post is desperate for more space so we will design and construct a brand new building for use as the primary clinic building with a supporting ablution block. The existing buildings would then be converted for use as a mothers’s shelter, two small wards and an office.

When completed, this project will go a long way in restoring community pride and reducing the stigma that people experience during health visits due to the current lack of privacy. The Mothers’ Shelter (accommodation for expecting mothers) will ensure that far fewer babies are born in the village or whilst travelling to the health post resulting in reduced maternal complications and deaths.

The new clinic building will be designed to encourage people to make full use of the services provided by the team, including Maternal and Child Health, Under-5 clinics, ART programme, pharmacy and health education outreach programmes and in doing so, elevate the collective health of the entire community.

To ensure this project will continue to serve the community for many, many years, Mission Geeks is partnering with local organisations to ensure that effective maintenance is provided into the future.