Just been talking to Anita...she's off to Bansang tommorrow and things aren't good.
The hospital did have an allowance of 6000 litres of diesel a month to run the gennies...that was enough to run the power for about 6 hours a day and occasionally to fire them up at night for emergency operations.
This has now been cut to 600 litres a month and they can hardly do anything with that. (they're running a small 40kva gennie a few hours a day but that keeps breaking down)
The water is only on sporadically...the town, the staff and the hospital are having to draw water from the wells, and obviously for the Hospital that means that they have to boil everything.
The worst news though is that there was an attempted coup a week ago last weds.......news is sparse but rumour abounds and one has it that President Yahya Jammeh might have been behind it in order to round up any opposition to his rule...he took power himself in 1994 in a coup.
Hopefully things will settle down and one day they'll be able to get rid of Jammeh, but there is a possibilty things will go tits up out there
On the up side though, I've just sent Anita another £2000 for buying the bricks and stuff for building the wall.......this is on top of another £1000 that Dennis sent out raised on pre sales of the TITS trip book......We've got a long way to go but we are going to do it.
They're into the hot season now, and Malaria is starting to get a hold again.......what we're doing now with the building work UKGSer and the TITS team are funding won't save anyone this year (although the drugs and equipment that we took out in January have made a difference) but by next year the wall will be finished...that means no more goats, cows or donkeys walking through the wards, no more Hyenas digging up babies from the cemetary every night and a lot more security and peace of mind for the staff who live in the shacks behind the hospital
Also, the Mercedes truck has been running oxygen up from Banjul, and collecting equipment shipped there by our friend Bob (It's one hell of a trip though so they're trying to minimize the amount of times it does the trip.....it's hard on vehicles and they just can't afford the fuel)
Finally, the scoots so generously donated by all you lot and the Leics police have been saving lives......
Dead chuffed with that...so often money people donate dissapears into some vast void and we never get to see the results, but these are people we've met, danced with, eaten with.......and what UKGSer did is actually saving lives out there.
I'll carry on posting more feedback as we get it......but as you can see, we've made a big difference to a lot of people...Mariama (the amputee that Dennis trained from scratch to ride one of our donated scoots) is doing really well and has new oppurtunities now she's mobile..the wall is starting, lives are being saved by the drugs and equipment and the scoots are working as intended
The hospital did have an allowance of 6000 litres of diesel a month to run the gennies...that was enough to run the power for about 6 hours a day and occasionally to fire them up at night for emergency operations.
This has now been cut to 600 litres a month and they can hardly do anything with that. (they're running a small 40kva gennie a few hours a day but that keeps breaking down)
The water is only on sporadically...the town, the staff and the hospital are having to draw water from the wells, and obviously for the Hospital that means that they have to boil everything.
The worst news though is that there was an attempted coup a week ago last weds.......news is sparse but rumour abounds and one has it that President Yahya Jammeh might have been behind it in order to round up any opposition to his rule...he took power himself in 1994 in a coup.
Hopefully things will settle down and one day they'll be able to get rid of Jammeh, but there is a possibilty things will go tits up out there
On the up side though, I've just sent Anita another £2000 for buying the bricks and stuff for building the wall.......this is on top of another £1000 that Dennis sent out raised on pre sales of the TITS trip book......We've got a long way to go but we are going to do it.
They're into the hot season now, and Malaria is starting to get a hold again.......what we're doing now with the building work UKGSer and the TITS team are funding won't save anyone this year (although the drugs and equipment that we took out in January have made a difference) but by next year the wall will be finished...that means no more goats, cows or donkeys walking through the wards, no more Hyenas digging up babies from the cemetary every night and a lot more security and peace of mind for the staff who live in the shacks behind the hospital
Also, the Mercedes truck has been running oxygen up from Banjul, and collecting equipment shipped there by our friend Bob (It's one hell of a trip though so they're trying to minimize the amount of times it does the trip.....it's hard on vehicles and they just can't afford the fuel)
Finally, the scoots so generously donated by all you lot and the Leics police have been saving lives......
Dead chuffed with that...so often money people donate dissapears into some vast void and we never get to see the results, but these are people we've met, danced with, eaten with.......and what UKGSer did is actually saving lives out there.
I'll carry on posting more feedback as we get it......but as you can see, we've made a big difference to a lot of people...Mariama (the amputee that Dennis trained from scratch to ride one of our donated scoots) is doing really well and has new oppurtunities now she's mobile..the wall is starting, lives are being saved by the drugs and equipment and the scoots are working as intended
