Your support is making such a difference.

Dr. Helena and the Oncology Nursing team Aisha, Joshi, Irene and Maria wish to thank all of our sponsors for their generosity and help. Quite simply each gift means life or a better quality of life for each cancer sufferer and helps to relieve, often immeasurable, suffering.

Thank you also to all those who partner with us and facilitate each person’s care. Rapid appropriate referrals have and will continue to save lives.

• Hospice Africa, who do a great job in finding desperate patients who need oncology support – we currently have 7 patients referred on treatment
• Bless a Child Foundation who partner with us at every level of cancer prevention, treatment and palliative support
• Softpower Jinja who kindly assist with treatment and transport – for 3 children at present
• Corsu – for additional  surgical support
• Dr. Richard Bogle for his generous gifts of support
• Sean Clarke and his customers at Kuvuka Cafe.

We set ourselves a target to raise £25,000 in 2010; to date our total raised is £7,796, which is a great start but we have some way to go… please help, you can give online now by clicking here.

Faith 12 yrs, when she first arrived at Hope Ward Cancer Clinic in July 2009:

We hardly had a smile from Faith for many weeks when she first started chemotherapy for Hodgkins lymphoma. Her father was in despair as Faith was teased and left out by her friends from school. Many thought she was ‘cursed’ and would be afraid to go near her or touch her. Faith is currently doing well on chemotherapy, as you can see in the photo below.

At Hope Ward Cancer Clinic, we consider holistic care extremely important. We have linked up with several volunteers who will also help us with the task of helping these children smile again and rebuild their lives, despite the tough treatment.

Fiona volunteers herself as ’Auntie’ to the children and has just brought in a box of toys, which is why the kids are grinning!

We also wish to acknowledge NGO Softpower Jinja who initially brought Faith and support 70% of her treatment.

We are very pleased to announce the receipt of a further £6,000 from Trade Aid UK to help support our Health Centre in Pader, Northern Uganda, which has treated, free of charge, 1,652 patients since last October (as at mid-May).

Click here to read more about Trade Aid UK.

Trade Aid UK supports the Pader Clinic

Trade Aid UK has donated £6,000 to support the Pader Clinic.

Trade Aid UK seeks to help eliminate the effects of world poverty through sustainable commercial trade.  By providing a top quality sugar product, it aims to give consumers a new choice for this most basic of commodities. At the same time, customers can be confident that they are making a real difference. As an alternative supplier of household sugars, profits generated are donated to help people who are deprived of the basic necessities of life, such as water, food, healthcare and housing.

Suubi Trust is extremely grateful for Trade Aid’s support which they have indicated will be ongoing.  You will find their sugar in Tesco Stores.  Buy it and spread the word and we can reap the benefits!  Visit the Trade Aid website at http://www.tradeaiduk.com/.

It costs about £5 to treat each patient and the running costs for the clinic total £27,500 per annum.

At the weekend Simon received confirmation that Trade Aid UK has agreed to give £6,000 and he received a further £3,000 from other supporters.

Simon has written a short introduction to our work in Pader, which you can download by clicking here.

In November and December Hope Ward received 46 patients. The bed-night occupancy was 388 nights and the total cost for this was almost £17,000.

About 55% of these costs were met by various Hope Ward sponsors, the balance being met by Dr. Ian Clarke and International Hospital Kampala.

Suubi Trust is proud to be a key sponsor and raised just over £3,850 during that period.

Other sponsors included:

• Dominic Bagenda and his colleagues in Japan, who gave £1,350
• Bead for Life sponsored 41 bed-nights (a bed night costs on average £27)
• Muvule Trust sponsored 60 bed-nights
• Stanbic Bank sponsored 30 bed-nights.

Consultant surgeon Dr. Moses and Dr. Hussein performed a number of operations free of charge.

In December we also received a kind donation of high quality wheelchairs from the Kampala Rotary Club given at a highly subsidised price.

You can read about the work at Hope Ward by clicking here…

£23,340.

On behalf of my fellow trustees I want to pass on our thanks to all and simply say that we are overwhelmed by such generosity.

We know that this will make a huge difference in the lives of many, many people.

Read more about fund raising on our website…

Kevin.

These gifts come in the same week as we received the following update about the work in Lira…

There is a very high incidence of Malaria and Typhoid in this district. Both of these infectious diseases thrive in areas where people live in crowded conditions, and the incidence of both can be reduced by simple education and sleeping under mosquito nets.

These diseases have a major impact on children, not only in terms of mortality, but also adversely affecting their development by causing them to miss school.
There have been 20 Charity patients recently treated for these conditions at the Lira clinic from the primary school alone, where the boarders are especially vulnerable.

Several children and their teachers wanted to share their stories:

Bob Yapi, Teacher in Charge of the school said

“The clinic has reduced the drop out rate and absenteeism at the school and I would like to thank all the sponsors.”

Emmanuel Okello, age 7, Primary 1:

He used to end up being admitted to Hospital and put on a drip but since he has been receiving help at the Lira Charity Clinic he hasn’t had any admissions.  He now takes the correct medication and sleeps under a net.  Emmanuel is poor and unable to afford correct medication; subsidised drugs from the charity clinic means he can get good medication, avoid admission for an iv drip – which means no absence from school.

Sarah Akoko age 12, Primary 7:

Used to get Malaria and Typhoid regularly but since coming to the Lira charity clinic for treatment, 3 months ago , she has had been healthy.

Lira pupils helped by funds raised at St. Peter's Methodist Primary School

Rita Ayugi age 10, Primary 5:

Has been suffering from regular bouts of Malaria. Since attending the Lira clinic she has had no further episodes and is much more active and alert in class and now takes part in extra- curricular activities.

Anna Adul, her teacher says

“I, and the school at large, have appreciated the effort you, the sponsors, have made in the school and hope you can continue with that spirit of good health for the children.

One of the nurses went to the school to talk about Malaria and Typhoid and to sensitise and educate the children and teachers on how to avoid these common diseases. Since the start of the clinic there has been a reduction in the incidence of these diseases in the school.”

Rita and her teacher Anna

We have been able to support all of the following:

• We established a new TB Lab at the hospital in Kampala and helped to support the work of Dr Mark, Dr Grania and Bosco as they led the way in establishing and validating a new TB diagnostic method, MOTS. Target TB has recently provided a grant to help complete the clinical validation and initial phase of testing and treatments.
• In Lira, Northern Uganda, we have been providing primary healthcare to 250 patients each month since the start of 2008. This work has been supported by St. Peters Methodist School in Canterbury, Aspect Capital, Port-P, Wesleyan Assurance and Kuvuka Coffee. We provided funding for staff to receive training by the Ministry of Health and this team has recently started an immunisation programme for those living in and around Lira (immunisation drugs are supplied by the Ministry). In the second half of 2008, in addition to continuing the work above, we hope to start an HIV-AIDS community outreach programme in which the team will provide voluntary counselling, testing and treatments; in this initiative we are working with Hands of Help.
• We have provided various funding for care given to patients at Hope Ward. These have included a number of surgical procedures and cancer treatments. We have further supported Hope Ward by working with a number of organisations, including Cardiac Report Limited, SonoSite, Inverness Medical UK and Morriston Hospital Swansea, to provide much needed medical equipment; the value of which we estimate to be just over £40,000.
• We have just started a new project in Pader, Northern Uganda, where we are working with the Government to renovate, equip and manage the Health Centre. We are hoping that this facility will become the prime referral centre for this region and be a base from which we can perform community based outreach providing much needed healthcare. If we can find sufficient funding this will include perhaps up to 5 mobile clinics that can reach the most rural areas; this initiative is being heavily supported by Dunavant Cotton, HIPS and USAID.

We are absolutely delighted with the level of support received and want to thank you all so much.

There’s lots more to be done, together we can make a difference.

Please consider helping; you can read more about Giving by clicking here…

These photos show the MicroMaxx now in use by staff at International Hospital Kampala.

Thanks and appreciation to our generous sponsors.