Island School Trip

The clinic I have been volunteering at has a connection with a school located on a small peninsula that is only accessible by boat. The area, along with the villages on surrounding islands, is completely ignored by the government when it comes to health care and education. The school was recently built by an expat using small grant money. The teachers are unpaid volunteers with little or no training and parents have little money for books and school fees. The clinic had been there twice before, once with deworming medication and then with oral polio and DTaP. This trip our objective was to administer oral polio, DTaP and measles. We had a lovely 45 minute boat ride and then a short walk to the school. School was not in session, but parents had been told to bring their children at 10:00am. Of course, not all of the children showed up! We tried to be organized and had kept a record of who had been previously immunized, but not all of those children showed up to continue their series of vaccines and we had brand new children. The children reacted a variety of ways to their shots, some were very stoic, some only winced, some cried but were accepting, some attempted resistance but were easily restrained by their parents, and then there were those that got absolutely hysterical. A toddler can easily be restrained by Mom or Dad and the shots given quickly and safely. An 8 year old child is a different story. Although the parents tried to hold down the flailing arms and legs, it just wasn't safe for us to give them their shots. Not to mention what the hysterical screaming was doing to the other kids waiting for their shots! Those children we didn't immunize and asked them to step outside so they would stop scaring the others. Unfortunately, one mother was so upset she started beating her daughter, chasing her out of the classroom and hitting her. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly and was very shocking and heartbreaking to see and hear. We asked our Ugandan social worker from the clinic to ask the mother to stop and just take the child home, that it would be okay, but who knows what happened once they were out of sight of the school. After immunizing all the children who had come, we had our lunch and continued on to a neighboring island. There are about 30 kids who come by schoolboat to attend the school and needed to continue their immunization series. After that we headed back to Kampala. A very interesting day that I very much enjoyed.  -Krista