I think from the time we began to wind off the main highway (or the like) along the muddy road toward the dense green hilly jungle countryside - it became apparent to all of us that we were going to arrive at a potential site for a Living Waters for the World water treatment system and health & hygiene education that would be the most rural installation a LWW team has ever done in Ghana.
Plug these coordinates into Google Maps and this is where we will be: 6° 37’ 47.7” N, 0° 54’ 54.4” W - we will be in Kwahu Praso #2 - yep - that means right before you get to Kwahu Praso #2 - you travel through Kwahu Praso #1.
The Presby Health Clinic really serves three (3) priorities 1) serves as a clinic as we would think, i.e. preventive health (as best as possible), minor injuries, sickness, etc.; 2) triage of much more intense medical problems and to stabilize and arrange transport to a larger clinic an hour or so away probably in NkawKaw; 3) maternity services, i.e. pre & post birth and birthing care (if possible).
The clinic actually has a wing dedicated to maternity services. See below - building to the top left of the location flag:
The director of the clinic, Kumah Francis, told us back in '14 that they support the birthing of 80 babies...if you read the post, "Saturday Part 3" in the '14 blog, you'll see that we interpreted the 80 as 80 per year. In fact, once our friend and in-country technician, Michael Asiamah, realized we didn't understand the number - Michael "poked" us and clarified it's 80 per month!
The women come from more remote villages than Kwahu Praso for prenatal & postnatal care & information and when possible arrive at the clinic to birth the baby. There are mid-wives in/around the remote villages to assist - but a large percentage of the mothers and babies come to the clinic no matter what.
Our plan is for our LWW installation team to conduct a "normal" LWW installation with the clinic staff and Kwahu Praso community - but to stretch one step further and develop education and information that the mothers and midwives can take back to the villages around the importance and care of the newborns with pure water.
Make no mistake - it will be challenging to keep the mothers/families supplied with pure water from the clinic, BUT the first place to start is with the information and then let the Ghanaians do what they do (which is over top) in figuring out how to distribute the pure water to mothers/families to the remote villages as best as possible.
The infant mortality rate in Ghana is off the charts compared to what we know in our lives. Depends on who you talk to in Ghana but we have gotten numbers anywhere from 1-3 out of 5. Does it really matter if it's 20% or 60% - I think you get the point.
A lot of the infant mortality rate is driven by water born disease - either directly effecting the baby or the mother or both. Baby gets water born disease - very high likelihood the baby dies of dehydration or lack of nutrition or worse.
Some of you will remember this picture (from the celebration of the installation of a LWW system in Akropong last year) of Chalmers holding Valentina's (yep crazy huh..) baby. The baby is getting her first drink of water since being born. It's a necessity for new mothers to breast feed for as long as possible before letting the baby drink water - including formula. Too much of a risk of the baby contracting water born disease!
BTW - check out the smile on Jim's face!! Being a retired pediatrician - when Jim see's the real impact of the pure water on the kids - he's like a kid with his happiness.
Winding back to our visit in 2014.
We rode away talking about how challenging an installation would be at Kwahu Praso and about how much impact a LWW water treatment system and education could have on the community and mission around the clinic. In the long ride back to Accra that Saturday night we challenged Rev Opong-Wereko to figure out how we could offer sustainable impact and we challenged ourselves to figure out what we needed to do to bring sustainable impact to the clinic.
Rev Opong-Wereko has moved on from his role as Director of Development and Social Services for the PCG and has been succeeded by Rev Daniel Asante - our new partner & friend and a great leader of thought and people. Rev Asante has the same passions for and understanding of the need of the sustainable impact of implementing a water treatment system and health & hygiene education at the Presby Health Clinic in Kwahu Praso #2.
We are going to "tackle" this installation and education in a first time model for Ghana and maybe LWW - there will be another post on this.
We are within hours of getting the message "it's time check-in" - but make no mistake Jim, Shari, Forrest, Daniel, Daniel, Chalmers and I have been checked in on the clinic at Kwahu Praso for almost 5 years!
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