A vision become a reality at CURE Kenya
John O’Dowd is a Reconstructive Spinal Surgeon based in London and Hampshire, and the Chairman of the CURE UK Board of Trustees. Read here about his inspiring trip to CURE Kenya.
In January this year, I made the journey to Kijabe, a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Nairobi, to visit the CURE International hospital. The drive up the Rift Valley escarpment is not for the faint of heart, but what awaited me at the top made it more than worthwhile.
Kenya is a country of 58 million people with just 12 paediatric orthopaedic surgeons. Half of them work at CURE. That single fact gives you a sense of what this hospital means to the children and families who find their way to its doors.
I was welcomed by the leadership team, including Medical Director Dr Theuri, whom I first met ten years ago when the hospital was at a very different stage of its journey. To return a decade on and see what it has become - 170 staff, over 3,000 patients treated each year, clinical activity that has doubled in just three year - was something I found genuinely moving. These aren't abstract numbers. They represent children who received surgery, who walked out of that hospital, who went home.
The hospital's reach extends far beyond its wards. Mobile clinic teams head out into remote communities and can see over 90 patients in a single day, bringing specialist care to families who would otherwise have no access to it. Eight newly trained chaplains are now working in local churches across the region. A new solar facility has just been completed. And perhaps most excitingly, ground has already been broken on the new surgical centre, which CURE donors made possible. I stood at that building site and watched it beginning to take shape.
Your generosity made that possible.
The moment that stayed with me most, though, was meeting Livingstone (pictured, left). Livingstone first came to CURE as a child, suffering from spinal tuberculosis, and was treated by Dr Theuri. He now works at the hospital full time. He spoke about what CURE had given him: not just his health, but his future. The room was very quiet by the time he finished his story.
I came away full of hope. The first fellow ever trained at CURE has just graduated. The new surgical centre is rising from the ground. And every day, children are receiving care in Kijabe that they simply could not find anywhere else in the country. I look forward to sharing more news as the next chapter unfolds.