Mahatma Gandhi Clinic

Hi Everyone! Please bare with me as this explanation is lengthy.

I am asking for your help for a very good cause. These past 3 weeks, Danah and I have been volunteering at Mahatma Gandhi Clinic in Livingstone, Zambia. This clinic is 1/30 of the clinics in Livingstone, all working under the same conditions. As many other countries, Zambia depends highly on tourism for the jobs and money it gives to their community. Due to COVID-19, tourism has been affected, in addition to jobs, food, money, well-being, and healthcare. COVID-19 exacerbated the problems that were already at hand in the healthcare industry. Due to the lack of money the country has as a whole, there is little to none being given to the clinics- just enough to keep the minimum amount of power running. The need for healthcare remains high, but not enough money to pay trained individuals. Reading that, you would think there is nobody working- the exact opposite. This amazing community has about half of the healthcare workers just volunteering- every single day all day, working a job that entails a lot of stress, risking their lives, not getting paid a dime. One nurse that I worked beside works 10 hour days, every single day, told me she is "hoping to one day get paid." Not only do the clinics not have enough money to pay their workers, they do not have money for basic supplies. When you think of healthcare and what is needed to even get the job done you think of equipment for testing, obtaining vital signs, blood work, listen to lung/heart sounds; then there is the other side of basic supplies you need to protect yourself like disinfectant, gloves, masks, the list goes on. These supplies are hardly being provided. These workers will have 1 box of gloves to share amongst everyone working in the clinic, which are favored to those working in the lab/ obtaining blood work. Those working in the lab have to resort to reusing their gloves and sanitizing them in between patients, even after getting blood on them, because if they throw them away they run the risk of not having another pair to put on. Danah and I worked in these conditions and this reality was truly heartbreaking, This is a huge NO-NO in the US where we work, but we are privileged here. They have such scarce supplies and regularly it is not working- leaving them to have to turn patients away some days. If they want to protect themselves and do their job the way they are taught to do it, they have to buy supplies with their own money... but most of them are not getting paid. They have an autoclave, which is a machine to sterilize equipment, but rarely can use it because the amount of power it takes to run leaves them without electricity, so they have to resort to using boiled water instead. I can go on about the dangerous conditions this community is living in, but I think you are starting to get the picture.

Since the clinics are government owned, I am not allowed to give money straight to the clinics. I will use the money this gofundme raises and work with a trusted individual in Zambia that will buy the supplies and give them directly to Mahatma Gandhi and the other clinics in Livingstone. This money will be used for: equipment, gloves, masks, antiseptics/disinfectant, and other supplies needed. The sky is the limit - the more money we can raise the more clinics we can help and more supplies we can give.