Context

Soni is a village in the Western Usambaras. Like most rural areas of Tanzania, local health provision is limited, and the nearest hospital is eighteen kilometers distance in Lushoto. Although the Tanzanian government has made progress concerning health recently, there is still a need to improve provision of health facilities at this local level.

March 2007 - after meeting on the road a distressed mother with a dying child, Jackie & Bill Neale together with Fr Tom Kiangio agree to establish a dispensary at Soni.

Progress

In late 2006 an estimate was made of the likely cost of a village dispensary, which would have a small female ward, a similar ward for men, a maternity unit as well as an outpatients clinic. That estimate was $36,600 for the completion of the whole dispensary block. By March 2007 there was only a small proportion of this money available for construction, but a decision was made to start work and to proceed as funds became available. At this stage Jackie and Bill Neale knew that they would be leaving Soni later in 2007, so they pledged to raise the estimated £15,000 still needed to complete construction. In March 2007 work began with the clearance of the site. As SGG workers were regular visitors to Soni, it was agreed that Jackie & Bill Neale and SGG would work in partnership to raise funds for the project.

Building progress by June 2007.

The new dispensary in February 2008. By now the local people were anxious for the facility to open.

In June 2008 the Outpatients Dept was ready for patients, and the medical staff began to receive an ever increasing stream of people in need of healthcare even though construction was only half-finished. In February 2009 SGG made the next monitoring visit to the dispensary. By then most of new rooms were built and in use, so only the finishing touches were required.

March 2009 – here is the Maternity Room nearing completion.

At the time of the SGG monitoring visit the dispensary was receiving about 10 patients per day. The most common health problems of outpatients then were malaria, skin infections and pneumonia. However, in the first 9 months of operation some 136 patients had been tested for HIV+ and 23 of those were confirmed as positive. Also by March 2009 5 babies had been born at the dispensary, but the Maternity Room was not yet ready. It is anticipated that the role of the dispensary in providing a clean environment for childbirth will greatly increase in the future. By June 2009 the full construction was finished, so this was the first SGG project to reach completion. We should, of course, point out construction is only a small part of improved health and education provision: the important part of the healthcare project only properly begins when that building work is finished. This construction project would be wasted if the far greater project of continuous management of the dispensary, improving local health, and reducing local infant & maternal mortality had not been undertaken by others. SGG would therefore like to acknowledge the contributions of :

• Fr Tom Kiangio who acted as local manager during the 2007-2009 construction phase,
• Jackie and Bill Neale, who initiated the project and were the major fundraisers,
• the Usambara Sisters who continue to provide key staff at the Dispensary,
• the Volunteer Missionary Movement, who provided Julie Blaney, the volunteer with responsibility for the continuing good management of St Raphael’s Dispensary,
• all those generous individuals and groups who supported Jackie & Bill Neale in their efforts to raise funds for the project.

Well done everybody!