Tomorrow is World Health Day.

I have worked in places where the health clinic considered itself lucky to have a functioning thermometer, where a doctor had not visited in at least ten years, and where the local pharmacy was a mat in the open-air market stocked with drugs of questionable origin and a 16 year old “pharmacist” who could not read the bottle labels. Cholera was a common occurrence at least once a year, and children routinely died of measles and malnutrition.

Fortunately, it is not this bad in Hagley Gap and Penlyne Castle. With your help, with the hard work of our Service Learning Program volunteers and with the continuing volunteer visits of medical teams from the University of Michigan and Northwestern we have built, equipped, and staffed not one but two medical clinics that are beginning to meet the health needs of the people of the Gap.

But we have a long way to go. We need to find a Jamaican doctor who is willing to work in our clinics on a regular basis. We need put into place a system for people to get to Kingston when they need advanced medical care so they will not miss medical appointments because they do not have money for the bus. And we need to tackle to public health issues such as nutrition, clean water, and hygiene so that we can reduce the need for emergency and advanced health care.

Cathy