Aug 4, 2008
Posted by Caitlin Cohen
After a brick laying community ceremony on
November 25th, construction of a health center
for 60,000 underserved slum residents will
begin! The clinic is scheduled to be
completed by June 2009, so Ben and I have spent
the last few weeks revising a list of the
medial supplies needed to equip the
clinic. We met with Dr. Magdalene Togo,
the ex-chief of medicine of the national
hospital, at the Ministry of Health to better
understand what clinic equipment we could
expect to be “prise en charge” (provided by the
government) and what will need to be provided
by MHOP.
The health ministry is located
in the presidential compound on top of an
imposing hill overlooking all of Bamako.
After spending all summer in the shadow of the
president’s hill, we finally got to approach
the center of Malian bureaucracy.
Caitlin, Niang, Ben and I took a cab up the
winding road past series of murals of past
Malian presidents. But halfway up the
hill, our taxi would go no further.
Apparently, for security reasons, the president
had recently prohibited any vehicle traffic on
the hill outside of government vehicles.
So the taxi reluctantly turned away, and Dr.
Togo sent down her personal chauffeur to pick
us up. We drove the rest of the way in
Togo’s comfortable, air-conditioned car past
wide, palm-lined boulevards that could have
been in central Florida. Togo’s office,
like most of the government buildings looks
like part of a James Bond set. She
ushered us through the glossy lobby, and
rapidly went through the requisite Malian
cousinage. She immediately agreed
to assist with questions during the clinic
construction process and provided us with a
copy of the “Liste Type Material CSCOM”, a list
of equipment that is supposedly provided by the
government to each CSCOM (local
clinic).
After
meeting with Togo, we visited several
neighboring clinics, and it became clear that
most CSCOMS aren’t supplied even with the
“minimum” materials. We spoke with the
Médecin Chefs at nearby CSCOMS to determine
which equipment they saw as essential.
They assisted us in creating a prioritized list
of crucial equipment but most of all stressed
the need for equipment to be continuously
updated and replaced. A number of doctors
we spoke with reiterated that the inability to
replace outdated equipment truly cripples the
quality of medical care that can be
provided. MHOP clearly needs to
supplement the equipment that will be provided
by the government. Over the next year,
our student group will form partnerships with
international medical supply organizations and
seek donations from US hospitals and
universities to acquire high-quality equipment
not covered by the Ministry of Health.
Unfortunately, no more visits on the
presidential hill have been planned, but
fundraising towards the new clinic is rapidly
coming to completion. Sikoroni residents
are continuing to invest in their own community
with individual contributions to make up $8000
of the costs and the remaining funds will be
funded through a combination of MHOP donations
and committed money from the Malian
government.
