Express

The main work of the sister nurse in Mukuru is visiting the sick in their homes. Most clients are AIDS sufferers and many are totally destitute. This visitation is done in conjuction with the community health workers of the various slum villages. Efforts to involve the villagers in clean up efforts, e.g. digging pit latrines are other health related activities are done. There are many constraints – the enormity of the task, overcrowding and dire poverty, a mobile population, the dependency syndrome, increasing numbers of AIDS patients and little government help.

Mary Immaculate Clinic offers low cost curative services to the slum patients. Here there is a registered VCT centre. Slovakian doctors together with two Kenyan nursing staff, laboratory technician, a cleaner and a clerk, man the unit. Up to 100 patients are seen daily. There are some concerns about treatment standards and around relationships between the doctors and local staff, which ae proving difficult to solve.