Reason to celebrate

This past February 2016, Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center (AMMCHC), completed its one year anniversary of being open for patient care. During that time there have been 61 deliveries, 1,325 pregnant woman visits, 15,051 out patient visits, and 170 surgical cases! Our medical team of over 50 local people continue to provide quality health care to the Koidu community.

This past weekend a celebration took place that included two days of festivities. The first day was a day of games such as a 5K race through Koidu streets, tug of war, and soccer. The participants were from AMMCHC as well as from Wellbody / PIH. The competition was friendly yet fierce. The soccer game drew a crowd of over 1000 people!

The second day was a day of formalities. The health center was decorated and over 300 people were in attendance. Paul Violanti, FNP and the Global Health Outreach Director from Buffalo spoke on how Phebian, RN is a medical missionary sent to heal the sick and preach the Gospel just like Jesus did during his ministry. The key note speaker was the Providential Minister who spoke about Phebian's victory over the Vice President 's attacks that had occurred over a year ago with his help. He mentioned that she didn't retaliate but fought with a "stethoscope and Jesus". The day concluded with a good meal. It was quite the celebration and a good time was had by all!

We are celebrating with Phebian and the staff of AMMCHC as they continue  to persevere against all odds of providing quality health care in the name of Jesus to those in Koidu Town, Kono District. We are hopeful in the year ahead that the fruits of our labor will continue to be multiplied and harvested. We are truly grateful!

New Vaccine Program Has Started!

We are thrilled to announce the new vaccine program that has started last week at Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center! This program is in partnership with the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health. In Sierra Leone, children under 5 years old receive free vaccines. Ministry Health Officers ride around on mopeds from village to village in order to deliver or even administer vaccines to these children. However, the reality is that more often then not the vaccines run out or are not kept at the proper temperature and so they go bad. At AMMCHC, we wanted to offer a solution to this problem for our young patients.

In order to make this program a success, we needed a solar powered refrigerator. A few months back we completed a fundraising campaign to gather funds for this much needed piece of equipment. Last month, it made it across the ocean to our health center and was installed with its very own solar panel for power. There is a picture below of the vaccine refrigerators solar panel sitting on top of the roof.

Umaru Conteh, also pictured below with the vaccine refrigerator, has agreed to lead this vaccine program. He is one of the faithful nursing aids that has been working with us over the past year. In order to qualify for this job, he underwent quite a few weeks of training by the District Health Medical Team. We are receiving all the vaccines free of charge through the District Health Medical Team!

We are excited to launch this much needed initiative!

Umaru, the vaccine program coordinator, with our solar powered refrigerator 

Vaccine Refrigerator Solar Panel

Recognition of our Kono Team

We are pleased to have received this Certificate of Appreciation Award presented by the District Ebola Response Centre and the District Health Management Team in Sierra Leone. It was awarded to our Kono Team for being a support and partner in the fight against Ebola. It was awarded on November 6, 2015 and signed by the District Coordinator, the World Health Organization and the District Medical Officer. It is an honor to work in partnership with the these organizations and we look forward to continuing our work together for the health of Sierra Leone. We congratulate our Kono Team for their good and hard work!

25 days of Giving

Dear Readers,

Last week, Jericho Road launched a 25 days of giving campaign for our Global Health Outreach program in Sierra Leone. We are hoping to raise 10K for a clean water business project. This business venture will not only further the sustainability of Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center, but will also provide clean drinking water for the Kono community.

Please click here to learn more about this project and to give online.

Thank you and Happy Holidays.

The Global Health Outreach Team.

AMMCHC

The Work Continues

Dear readers,

The Jericho Road team has returned safely from a three week medical mission trip to Sierra Leone working in the Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center (AMMCHC). It was a blessed and productive time. We were able to provide maternal health training, nursing care training, and other basic training to the motivated AMMCHC staff. They are already doing great work there, seeing around 80 patient's per day. 

We also helped restart the village outreach to three of our target villages. The villages we visited were Tombodu, Kangama, and Tefaya. The need for basic medical care in these rural places in Kono is great. This was the first time we visited the villages in over a year due to the Ebola crisis. The roads were tough and the days were long but we knew it was where God wanted us. 

Despite what the people of Sierra Leone have been through over the past year, they were welcoming and friendly. They received our help with open arms and embraced us as one of them. We went with the mindset to serve in any way possible (and we did) but we also were served by them. Our purpose was to teach but they taught us as well. We gave them our best and they didn't hold back in giving to us. It was seamless and pure the way we all worked together. This reminded us about the beauty of the body of Christ working together to serve, edify and give to one another. 

There is a lot that needs to be done still in regards to teaching and training. We are committed to investing in the staff at AMMCHC and to bringing the best medical care possible to this area of Sierra Leone. In doing so, we are providing hope and being the hands and feet of Jesus where it is needed most.

Thank you for reading.

The Global Health Team

The AMMCHC Staff

Outside Patient Waiting Area

The Jericho Road Team

The Need Grows

In August we completed our 7th month of operation at Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center (AMMCHC). There is a dedicated medical team working very hard to provide medical care for the Kono district community in Sierra Leone. Word continues to spread about the quality of care provided at the health center and so more and more people are traveling from all over Kono to receive medical help. This says a lot about the compassionate and competent staff that is working to provide this type of care.

The month of August was very busy as 1,480 patient's were seen for various general illnesses ranging from chronic to acute conditions. A total of 34 patient's received a hernia repair operation at the local Koidu Government Hospital and underwent post-operative care at AMMCHC. There are 23 people on the hernia repair waiting list. There were five successful deliveries in the maternity ward at AMMCHC. Two were healthy baby boys and 3 were healthy baby girls. We are grateful.

There is a team of six people going over from Jericho Road in October to help see patients, train staff, network, and provide encouragement to the local medical team. The collaboration continues to deepen and thrive as we work together to be the hands and feet of Jesus to that community. If you would like to support us financially in order to help offset some of the cost, please go to our website and give towards: Sierra Leone Oct Trip (other box). All donations will receive a tax receipt.

Please join us in praying for a medical doctor to join AMMCHC, the protection and success of the team going in October, strength for the local medical team as they work, and for the country of Sierra Leone especially the Kono district to be healthy and whole.

Vaccine Fridge and Other News

We were able to secure funding for a much needed vaccination refrigerator for Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center. Thank you to all who gave in this way! Having this refrigerator will literally help us save lives in Kono.

The Sierra Leone Ministry of Health does distribute and administer vaccinations to children however keeping the vaccines cold so they don't expire or go bad is a constant challenge. Getting out to the rural areas of Sierra Leone like the Kono district is also a challenge and a barrier to health. Now that we have a way to keep the vaccines cold, we will be able to keep a stock at our medical center and administer them to our pediatric patients. Diseases like measles and polio take lives (often young ones) all to often in a place like Sierra Leone due to poor sanitation and a lack of health services. Vaccines do keep children and communities healthy so we are very grateful to have this opportunity at our medical center.

In other news, we've purchased our second vehicle with a recent grant that we received. This vehicle will help us restart our village outreach to five surrounding villages. This outreach had been put on hold due to the Ebola crisis and we've been eager to restart this for the past two months. The village outreach is essentially going into each village and holding a day long medical clinic once a month. In addition, we meet with village leaders in order to help gain a better understanding about the health and non-health needs of each village. We are also looking to train a few community health workers in each village so that they can attend to the medical needs of their fellow villagers in our absence as well as be the medical liaisons for their village and our medical center in Kono.