Interview from SOS Medical Centre Kakiri, Uganda with Sister Immaculate

This interview with Sister Immaculate at the SOS Medical Centre Kakiri, Uganda she tells us about essential health care the centre provides.

SOS: We're at the SOS Medical Centre in Kakiri and I'm talking to Sister Immaculate who's going to take me around.

Sister Immaculate: Welcome to SOS Medical Centre Kakiri, we started in 1992. And I also started here in 1992.

SOS: Really? That's been a long time.

Sister Immaculate: Yes, I've been here for fifteen years. So, we started by treating by treating only children, but as the clinic grew, we also added adult patients. We started by early treating once, but then went on to preventive care, immunization, natal care for mothers, post-natal and monitoring. Then integration was done by giving out vaccination to people, healthy toxics, immunization to children, and even checking on the ward how the homestead is...then there was some training and some funds, so we even expanded our 'workings'. We're working hand-in-hand with the government.

SOS: Are you open everyday?

Sister Immaculate: Yes, we're open every day, from Monday to Friday we're fully open to the community, but Saturdays and Sundays we're open according to staff [available], because there's only one staff [member] there at the centre over the weekend.

SOS: So, what time do you open in the morning?

Sister Immaculate: Most of the time there's a nurse who remains here to keep that place. So, the centre has to open very early, before eight.

SOS: So, the patients come at eight?

Sister Immaculate: Sometimes when it is accessible, but if it not accessible, they are delayed because of the lane, but by eight, we have already started.

SOS: How many patients do you see a day?

Sister Immaculate: 30 to 40 per day.

SOS: What is the most common illness?

Sister Immaculate: Malaria is the most common, and upper respiratory infection.

SOS: And, who is this one here?

Sister Immaculate: This is a nursing assistant, she also works here and treats patients, things like giving medicine, even working at the laboratory, and giving dispenses, medicine.

SOS: How many of you are here?

Sister Immaculate: We are about eight staff [members], a doctor, a medical officer, a nurse midwife, me, I'm a midwife and a counsellor, then we're having two nursing assistants, a lab technician, a visiting doctor who comes from Malago...

SOS: .She comes from Malago Hospital, which is the largest hospital in Kampala...

Sister Immaculate: ...yeah, she's a consultant...in children

SOS: ...a paediatric consultant...

Sister Immaculate: ...she comes Tuesdays and Fridays, mostly she comes after midday, because she's most of the time in Malago, when she's busy, she comes for assistance.

SOS: So, it's a busy little centre. How many patients do you have, records?

Sister Immaculate: We may have 3,000...or more than that...

SOS: Hm, and now we've got several patients waiting...

Sister Immaculate: ...they have just come in; because of the lane they're a bit late...

SOS: Good.

Sister Immaculate: So, on Mondays, we begin our clinic, but we have another department there behind people can visit for daily counselling, patients from here. Then, there are those who come for counselling - we can have about ten per day for counselling. And, on Tuesdays, we do go out for outreach. Then, on Friday again, we go out - there is a nurse - a voluntary nurse - who comes out to help patients for the full day, does immunization, supplies medicine like Sarpendazo (?) and some other remedies.

Community benefits from services at the SOS Medical Centre Kakiri, Uganda

SOS: How much do patients pay here?

Sister Immaculate: They pay according to what they have.

SOS: So, there is no registration fee?

Sister Immaculate: No, they don't pay registration fee, they just pay for the medicine they have got.

SOS: I see, and they don't pay for the doctor?

Sister Immaculate: They don't.

SOS: Do you see patients?

Sister Immaculate: We, the nurses, do see patients, and even our clerical staff sees patients, and when the doctor is here, they also see patients.

SOS: ...and there's no charge...

Sister Immaculate: There's no charge for seeing patients.

SOS: Which day do you do ante-natal...

Sister Immaculate: ...every day. When a mother pops in, she does the visit, we test everything, and then she goes her way. She's given anti-anaemia medicine...and if she's having any kind of infection, this is being treated...and every investigation is done, like a Syphilis test, PTMCT...

SOS: ...PTMCT...

Sister Immaculate: ...prevention of mother to child treatment, making sure the mother is safe from HIV...

SOS: Maybe they can show you out, Sister Immaculate...

Sister Immaculate: The patients who are coming here only pay 500 [Ugandan Shillings] for this book...

SOS: There is a book...which is a record...

Sister Immaculate: Yeah, and they don't go in here [with this], it is kept here for filing...then, after here, they go in different rooms...if announced, you sit over here...after being seen and everything's done, they come back and sit over here, for chatting, and to pay for drugs...and afterwards, she goes to that particular room, and if an injection is given, then she goes out for the supplies of medicine...

SOS: So, we're going into a treatment room now...

Sister Immaculate: That's the doctor's room, where he sees patients

SOS: I see there's a weighing machine here for babies...so that's usually for tiny babies...

Sister Immaculate: This is our small office and computer room...

SOS: Aha, the office for the person in charge

Sister Immaculate: ...and it's also our computer room...this one here is our small dressing room for the nurses...and this is for patients, and also one for nurses to sleep here...

SOS: So, there are two patients' beds here...and there's one for a child, I think...

Sister Immaculate: ...one for an adult and one for a child...

SOS: So, if you need a patient to lie down, obviously they don't stay the night...

Sister Immaculate: ...most of them don't stay for the night...

SOS: ...but they can latch here...

Sister Immaculate: ...and here is our clinic accountant...for accounting for the bit of money we get from the patients...

SOS: ...so, at the moment it's tea time, I think...Sister Immaculate is taking me through...

SOS Children has been working in Uganda since 1989 when the first SOS Children's Village welcomed children at Kakiri. Further children's villages are home to orphaned and abandoned children at Entebbe and at Gulu. The SOS Medical Centre at Kakiri provides essential services to the local community seeing more than 6,000 people annually.

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