Gail Wolters, daughter of Edith Bernard, grew up near Khedive, Saskatchewan and is now a Registered Nurse residing in Ontario. Five years ago, Wolters founded Canadian Nurses for Africa. She is again rounding up supplies for her fourth visit this April, which is showing signs of being the team's most successful mission yet.
Weyburn knitters have about another month to get their teddy bears ready to send to Kenya.
Since 2009, nurses from Canada have travelled, at their own expense, to Kenya. They have voluntarily treated thousands of villagers who otherwise would have gone without medical care. From simple wounds to parasites to crippling diseases, during their visits the Canadian Nurses for Africa help to save the lives of thousands of people.
Excitingly, this year's team has increased from eight to fourteen nurses and the expanded team will also be working for eleven days instead of seven.
Last year, in seven days of working, the Canadian Nurses team treated more than 6,500 people.
Wolters works in partnership with a Kenyan-born Canadian gentleman named Aggrey Mulamba, who has all of the connections in Kenya. Mulamba arranges, in advance, where the team of nurses will set up their one-day clinics in the surrounding villages of Kakamega, located in the equatorial region of Kenya.
"It's not where tourists go," said Wolters of the region, also stating that she could not have made it into these rural regions of Africa without the assistance of a native Kenyan.
"It's taken three years to really get their trust," said Wolters. "Now they are starting to trust us."
By her third year, Wolters was even able to recognize some people from previous years.
Each morning, the team departs from Kakamega, driving at least a half an hour to where they will set up their clinic, which is usually a rural school.
Many people will walk several miles to the clinics and will patiently wait close together in line, for hours upon hours, to get treatment. Wolters said they also wear their nicest clothing to the clinics!
The team sees as many people as they can during each one-day clinic. Every single person is admitted through a registration process, a chart is created for each to keep and each person is triaged with full sets of vital sign tests. The patients then see the Clinical Officers (equivalent to a Nurse Practitioner in Canada), who examine them and then prescribe any necessary medicines.
The Canadian nurses partner with an equal number of Kenyan nurses, who do all the interpreting and a lot of the teaching.
"Any teaching we do, we have a Kenyan nurse there to do the interpretation, to ensure their understanding," said Wolters.
Once examined and properly instructed, the patients are put into the care of the nurses.
"We do wound care and we see a lot of untreated wounds," said Wolters. "We have the capacity to check for blood sugars but we don't do any other invasive kind of things, just blood sugar, because it's a field setting."
Because the team can only transport so much volume of supplies each day, eventually they start running out of medications.
"Probably one of the hardest things is closing the doors at the end of the day and there are still people waiting in line," said Wolters. The lack of electricity in rural Kenya also means that the team must shut the clinics down before sunset in order to safely travel the rough roads back to Kakamega.
In order to compensate for not always being able to treat every person and to show they care about the children, last year Wolters set up a de-worming station outside, to de-worm the children that people had with them.
When necessary, the nurses' care also extends to beyond the clinic.
"If people are really sick, we take them in our vans to the hospital and we pay for their treatment," said Wolters. She described a young man who could not walk, whose mother had carried him to a clinic, where he was subsequently diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. Because of Canadian Nurses, he now has a custom-made wheelchair.
There are a number of stories Wolters could tell that would move anyone's heart.
Wolters has observed enough in her visits to Kenya to have a few fundraising initiatives in addition to the regular supplies used by the organization. She is hoping for sponsors to contribute to the Jiggers Program, which costs $5,000 and allows for a currently unavailable follow-up jiggers treatment as well as home-spraying protection against the nasty bugs. Another way for Canadians to contribute is through a $750 investment to install latrines near the rural schools, allowing for increased dignity, privacy and hygiene.
Some Weyburn residents have been contributing all along. With support from Wolters' sister in law, Marnie Bernard, Weyburn and area knitters send hand-knitted teddy bears with Wolters, which are distributed to the children during the clinics. Last year the Canadian Nurses team was able to give 160 bears to children in Kenya as well as 160 discretionary cloth bags.
Knitting and crocheting patterns for the teddy bears can be picked up at the Allie Griffin Gallery, located at the Weyburn Public Library, or can be sent via email request from Marnie Bernard at marniebernard@hotmail.com.
This year's teddy bears will be collected during the Teddy Bear Tea Party, which will be held at the Allie Griffin Gallery on March 29 at 1:30 p.m.
For more information visit us at canadiannurses forafrica.blogspot.com.
