Naperville Rotary improving conditions at Nigeria hospital
Imagine living in a place where the power comes on for maybe an hour a day. The main water source is 2 or 3 miles away and it's not guaranteed to be clean. AIDS and malaria are common. Hospitals don't have all the resources they need to provide care.
Rotary Club of Naperville members haven't lived like that, but they're helping out in a place where people do: Nsukka, Nigeria.
Pat Merryweather, Chuck Newman and Rachel Ossyra are among Rotary members who recently have traveled to Nigeria to help a Catholic mission hospital there improve its electricity situation, learn how to keep donated equipment running as long as possible and make plans to dig a well for clean water.
"We take so much for granted here, but when you go to other countries and you see how other people live and the conditions they live in, the needs are just so great," Ossyra said.
During the past eight years, Rotary members have donated a $50,000 diesel electricity generator and used medical equipment worth at least $850,000 to Bishop Shanahan Hospital in Nsukka, improving conditions and increasing its ability to attract better doctors.
"When I first got there in 2007-08, they had one generator for the hospital," Newman said. "It only generated enough power for two wards at a time."
The hospital still doesn't have enough generator capacity to keep electricity running in every area the whole day. But with the addition of the second unit from the Rotary, surgeons now can have light, anesthesia machines and heart rate monitors to conduct emergency surgeries at night, Ossyra said.
"We could see the increase in the number of patients that were seen at the hospital, and particularly in the number of surgeries," Ossyra said. "We know it's had a real impact on the people there and on lives."
During Ossyra's most recent trip to Nigeria - a solo visit in June - she helped the hospital develop maintenance plans and spare parts lists to keep donated equipment functioning as long as possible.
The club in May sent a 40-foot shipping container filled with devices such as vital sign monitors, infant incubators, surgical equipment, surgical lighting, hospital beds and infant delivery beds.
The equipment came through Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach in Springfield, which refurbishes used medical equipment so it can have a second life in Third World countries. While the machines work now, Ossyra said secondhand equipment often fails within five years, so that's why she returned to the African nation a second time this year to help hospital officials prepare to make repairs when something breaks.
One of the Rotary members who has helped in Nigeria, Merryweather, has a medical background and works as executive director for Telligen, a Medicare quality improvement organization, for Illinois, Iowa and Colorado. Merryweather said she helped Bishop Shanahan Hospital officials conduct a three-day strategic planning session during her last trip to Nsukka in May.
"The biggest challenge that we run into is the needs are so great - and all at once - that how do you prioritize what will have the largest impact?" Merryweather said.
Analyzing the types of diseases the hospital treats and operating conditions for doctors led to two future areas of focus: conducting public health outreach about prevention of illnesses such as malaria and AIDS and installing a well so the hospital can have consistent clean water.
"Understanding and addressing one set of needs just leads you to the next," Ossyra said.
Rotary members say the service work reminds them that the difference between plenty and poverty often is just geography. So it's important to help those whose living conditions lack the conveniences we've come to see as necessities.
"There's no difference between me and somebody in Nigeria or another country living in poverty - it was just the ZIP code or the area I was born into that makes the difference," Merryweather said. "We all have the same ideals. We all want the best for the people we care for."