Ngoswani Clinic
Recently, we donated an Omano OM88 compound microscope to New Frontiers Health Force for their Ngoswani clinic in Kenya. To our delight, we have just received a heart-warming thank you letter from no less than Naomi, the new Lab technician hired to use the microscope, an email from one of the volunteers who traveled to Ngoswani this May and a newsletter thank you from the director, Dr Tonya Hawthorne. It makes such a difference to hear back from the recipients and it makes our day to realize that such a simple gift has such a profound impact.
New Frontier HF had successfully built the clinic over many years, but to our surprise this was their first microscope! Previously, the only access to blood tests was an university hospital in Narok about 1 1/2 hours away and at some expense. 1 1/2 hours may not seem far but unless you have experienced the bone-jarring “corrugations” of rural Kenyan roads, it is hard to understand the delight in not having to endure this on a regular basis! Now the clinic can do blood work on site and they have already diagnosed multiple cases of malaria. To put it in perspective, once the microscope was unpacked and ready to go, such was the excitement that the entire clinic stopped working in order to enjoy the moment.
