The road there was probably the bumpiest we've ever had (and that's saying something):
The clinic itself, though, was impressive.
An example of how an NGO could work and work well. There are 6-7 physicians and 4 PAs that work on a 24 hour basis in the clinic and acute care center. They see mostly HIV patients and have free testing for anyone who shows up. All treatments and drugs (including anti-retroviral), laboratory testing, and clinic visits are all free and funded by external sponsors (one of which is apparently Alica Keys...?). The clinic has it's own lab, it's own acute care ward, family planning, counseling, food distribution, and even a labor ward.
One of the things I thought they did really well was psychosocial support for patients getting tested for HIV. They meet with a counselor first, the counselor goes over goals and expectations, get tested, and meet with the counselor again for the results. Patients with poor medication compliance meet with a counselor to discuss barriers to medication use or just for counseling given a new diagnosis of HIV. I haven't really seen this kind of system in place in a lot of American hospitals so it was great to see how they ran things here. The physicians see up to 600 patients a day and their resources are stretched thin.. but from what I can tell everybody gets the care they need.
I'm off to Jinja for the weekend! We're going to raft Grade 5 rapids on the Nile... Wish me luck!
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