Gardens for Health International and King Faisal Hospital
Today we started the day by visiting Gardens for Health International. This is by far my favorite organization we have visited so far! So this organization takes an integrated approach to end malnutrition. They work at the intersection of health and agriculture to reduce the rates of chronic childhood malnutrition in the poorer neighborhoods in Kigali and the Gasabo District. So what they do is work closely with local health posts or the sector’s health center to identify children under 5 years old who are malnourished. From there they teach mothers how to grow and prepare healthy, balanced meals for their children from cheap market fruits and vegetables. They also teach them how to tend to a personal garden for even more healthy, sustainable and affordable food choices. The cool part about this organization was that they taught these families how to successfully grow certain vegetables that are harder to grow in Rwanda so they can get the nutrients from them as well as sell them for good money. The headquarters for this organization had a huge farm on the property where they experiment, and mass produce fruits, vegetables and seeds for distribution for the families in the program. After we toured the farm we got to have a simple lunch made completely from items grown in the farm. Once again it was beans and potatoes! But so so good! They gave us some homemade chili oil and that added a kick to the beans. They called this a “community lunch” so everyone who works at the headquarters as well as the people in the neighborhood are welcome to join. The neighborhood where GHI is located is very very poor so it was really cool to see how many people came for lunch. The local kids joined us and they were the cutest kids I have ever met! They all came running over with their bowls and just stacked them with beans and potatoes! I was very very impressed with the amount of food they ate. They all sat on the ground and started eating with just their hands. Haha it was messy but really cute. After lunch we got to hang out with the kids for a while. We broke out a couple packs of crayons and they were ecstatic! We had a lot of fun drawing with them and teaching them how to write their names! They were so excited to practice their english and learn how to write their names.
After lunch we visited King Faisal Hospital. This hospital is the best hospital in the country. It is known as a referral hospital which means it is the top tier of the healthcare system (aka VERY expensive). Not many people get treatment here. You can’t just walk in and expect to be treated, you have to go from a health center to a district hospital and then maybe you could get referred to King Faisal if your condition is severe enough and if you could afford it. This hospital also receives cases from the Congo and Burundi. It is very small though. There are only 7 beds in the ICU and in the NICU. It is significantly smaller than the Park City Hospital. Our visit was to specifically look at infection prevention and control protocols they have in place. For the most part I was extremely impressed with their infection control. They are doing a really good job with the resources they have. They are an accredited hospital meaning they have passed Rwanda’s Ministry of Health inspection - which is REALLY specific. We visited this hospital to have a standard in mind for the best healthcare possible here. Which will be really helpful when we are at the local health centers, because those will be very very different. That is where we will be doing our work! This visit was interesting because I definitely don’t think they were completely transparent with how successful their infection control is. We had a Q&A with them at the beginning and we asked them simple questions like “what is the most challenging aspect of infection control here” or “how to you keep your staff compliant with the protocols” and they would reply “we don’t have any challenges, everything is great” and “every single staff member is compliant, we don’t have to deal with noncompliance”. So our professor reminded us to take everything with a grain of salt. They couldn’t release any real numbers to use regarding infection rates which I would have really liked to look at. They also only took us to parts of the hospital they knew were in compliance with protocols. Since we studied the Rwandan ministry of health protocols before we came on the trip we would have been able to spot issues easily. The IPC representative almost took us to the NICU but someone stopped us at the door and said we couldn’t go in, they also said they couldn’t find the key to the waste storage room so they was a little fishy to me. Considering the circumstances it was a very clean hospital and I was impressed. I glad we have King Faisal Hospital to use as an example of the best care standard because the health centers wont be like this. But we know their standard is possible!!
After lunch we visited King Faisal Hospital. This hospital is the best hospital in the country. It is known as a referral hospital which means it is the top tier of the healthcare system (aka VERY expensive). Not many people get treatment here. You can’t just walk in and expect to be treated, you have to go from a health center to a district hospital and then maybe you could get referred to King Faisal if your condition is severe enough and if you could afford it. This hospital also receives cases from the Congo and Burundi. It is very small though. There are only 7 beds in the ICU and in the NICU. It is significantly smaller than the Park City Hospital. Our visit was to specifically look at infection prevention and control protocols they have in place. For the most part I was extremely impressed with their infection control. They are doing a really good job with the resources they have. They are an accredited hospital meaning they have passed Rwanda’s Ministry of Health inspection - which is REALLY specific. We visited this hospital to have a standard in mind for the best healthcare possible here. Which will be really helpful when we are at the local health centers, because those will be very very different. That is where we will be doing our work! This visit was interesting because I definitely don’t think they were completely transparent with how successful their infection control is. We had a Q&A with them at the beginning and we asked them simple questions like “what is the most challenging aspect of infection control here” or “how to you keep your staff compliant with the protocols” and they would reply “we don’t have any challenges, everything is great” and “every single staff member is compliant, we don’t have to deal with noncompliance”. So our professor reminded us to take everything with a grain of salt. They couldn’t release any real numbers to use regarding infection rates which I would have really liked to look at. They also only took us to parts of the hospital they knew were in compliance with protocols. Since we studied the Rwandan ministry of health protocols before we came on the trip we would have been able to spot issues easily. The IPC representative almost took us to the NICU but someone stopped us at the door and said we couldn’t go in, they also said they couldn’t find the key to the waste storage room so they was a little fishy to me. Considering the circumstances it was a very clean hospital and I was impressed. I glad we have King Faisal Hospital to use as an example of the best care standard because the health centers wont be like this. But we know their standard is possible!!
Baby Avocado!
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