Burning Bush has expanded its outreach in central Kenya to assist nurses who own and operate their own clinics. Often the only source of health care in their communities, these nurses are constrained by limited training, insufficient supplies, and substandard facilities.
Although health care in Kenya is free, it is estimated that private nurse practitioners provide about 42 percent of basic health services. While their training and experience vary, these nurses are all engaged in “advanced practice” nursing, diagnosing illnesses and prescribing and dispensing medications. Their clinics, some of which have no running water or electricity, receive no government funding.
The nurses have organized themselves into “clusters” to support one another and exchange information. In central Kenya, these clusters meet monthly; at each meeting, members make a small contribution to a fund that functions like a business line of credit. The nurses can borrow money from this fund to purchase needed supplies and repay the loans over time.
After attending some of these meetings and conducting a needs assessment, BBI found that these capable, caring nurses had a pressing need for continuing education, supplies, and equipment. Continuing education courses and other resources are available in Nairobi and other cities, but nurses in remote areas have neither the money nor the time to travel outside their area. Moreover, there was no structured means of disseminating information, equipment, and training from cities to remote areas.
To help address this problem, BBI decided to fund construction of the WAKA Continuing Education Center. Construction began in August 2009 and the Center was completed in May 2010. The facility is centrally situated, easily accessible by private and public transportation, and supported by basic infrastructure. The building has two classrooms accommodating at least 20 participants/students per class and a computer lab for 20 students, along with an office, board room, kitchen, WC, space for humanistic models, and a small library. Rosemary and Eustace Kamunya, who operate the WAKA Maternity Home and Health Services Clinic, are BBI’s partners in the endeavor and are managing the Center. The couple have actively trained nurses for a number of years, Rosemary as a training adviser for the Kenyan programs of JHPIEGO, an international health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, and Eustace as the principal of the Mt. Kenya Medical Training College. In addition to offering advanced training programs for nurses in the Mt. Kenya cluster, the WAKA Continuing Education Center will provide a means for other organizations to channel equipment and supplies to the area.
Also in 2009, BBI formed a relationship with the Nurses Apron Partnership, a grassroots group of American nurses and their friends, to fund training and education for nurses in central Kenya who want to participate in more comprehensive distance-learning programs. Functioning as a donor portal for BBI, the Nurses Apron Partnership raises money for scholarships by selling copies of its book, Gotcha Covered: A legacy of service and protection. The brainchild of Ginger Manley, RN, who was inspired by a collection of vintage kitchen aprons left to her by her Aunt Katherine, the book is a heart-warming compilation of essays, poems, and fictional stories about the role of aprons in the lives of women, and nurses in particular.