Plaster House

Hello to everyone!

Today is writing the blog Luis, another TATU HEALTH PROJECT member, and I want to talk with you about the PLASTER HOUSE, a project that is going on in Arusha (a big city near Moshi)

All started with the medical caravan and those patients that needed specific treatment and it couldn´t be covered ( the caravan only offered primary care, so it left out surgery problems). In this point we found Saumu and Jacob, a three years old girl with club feet and another eight years old boy with cryptorchidism. Pamoja Tunaweza doctors insisted us in offering these children a surgery, because it will change their lifes, so we started looking for programs or NGOs that could take care of them for free(because their families are very poor)…and we found Arusha Lutheran Medical Center and their program ‘Surgical Rehabilitation for Disabled Children’. This initiative is focused in the treatment of the disabled children of the community (birth defects, club feet, skeletal fluorosis, burn contractures, cerebral palsy,…) providing surgery and what is more important in some cases, rehabilitation. The hospital currently operates on over 150 disabled children annually.

They also count with the PLASTER HOUSE. This is a big house they have built in Mount Meru’s hillside (Arusha) in the middle of a landscape with green hills far enough from city hubbub. In this place children live since they are operated or they start their rehab treatments until they finish them. Bedrooms are situated around a central playground and they are all together playing and sharing those difficult moments. Five MAMAS take care of them and they have also a car which drives down the children to the hospital for their treatments.

Coming back to Saumu and Jacob…we got in contact with the program through Dr Jacobson and Dr Sarah Rejman and in few days they accepted the children for the surgery. When we took Saumu to the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center they invited Angela and me to see the Plaster House in person.

All the workers of the program and from the hospital treated us so well and they explained us everything. Personally I just can say that I admire what they are doing for these children…I can´t even imagine a better way to deal with these problems that the children have. The house, the environment, the atmosphere…I’m sorry because a simple description can´t make you imagine how amazing it is.

Currently Saumu is being treated for a deformity her mother and her grandmother suffer, and was affecting her too…Are you asking about Jacob? His family refused the surgery in the last moment…they thought that he could die (Cryptorchidism surgery is a well Known operation for all the surgeons and the risk is very low). As Angela said ‘’ it is true it is a need to give training to Msitu Wa Tembo villagers because that surgery would have improved Jacob’s life a lot…’ Once again. THANKS.