We are extremely grateful for the support that we get to enable us to work in Bwindi. Hopefully you will be impressed by what the team who work here have achieved in 2007. A lot has been done to improve the health of the people of this area, but there is still much to do.

This morning we did a ward round before starting the HIV clinic. Our hospital is overflowing with children and pregnant women. Amon is 6 years old and his skin is peeling off because of severe malnutrition. His family are too poor to feed him a balanced diet, and he has been living off a local banana plant called matoke. His belly is swollen and he has been unable to swallow food or drink. His immunity is so low that he developed pneumonia and last week he was close to death. Today, after eight days of treatment, he was outside for the first time playing with a toy reindeer and laughing. We work here because we are able to make a difference to the life of Amon and thousands of others like him. He will be home to join his family for Christmas.

Please take a look at the Health Centre website at www.BCHC.ug. It is full of the latest news from the hospital, including stories from our activities, information about HIV/AIDS, new photographs and a focus on the staff who work here.

News in brief

• The Child Health and Nutrition Unit is due to open in January 2008. It has space for 24 children with malnutrition and other diseases, plus a neonatal unit ready for sick newborn babies. Dr Doreen Agasha is leading this service.
  Dr Scott Kellermann, the founder of BCHC is working at the hospital and helping to create a new organisation called the Batwa Development Program
• The Health Centre took delivery of a new Ambulance in November. Many, many thanks to all of the people who made this happen. It is already being put to good use transferring women in labour, helping teams to distribute mosquito nets in the community and expanding HIV testing and treatment outreach
• 52 babies were delivered at Bwindi Community Health Centre in November 2007, up from 25 in November 2006. By next year we will have a hostel for waiting mothers, Caesarean Sections and a new Maternity ward.
• Dan, a new nurse, will be working full time on Family Planning (birth control) in the hospital and in the community from January. Uganda has the second highest fertility rate in the world and the average age is only 14! An ever-expanding population puts the environment under pressure and traps families in poverty
• People who helped support the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV project appeal in August 2007 will be happy to know that many babies are being born free from HIV, and that our midwife Evelyn will be expanding the program to other health centres in the District next year.
• We have not seen any child die from malaria in the last six months, whereas last year we were losing one or two kids a week. The success of mosquito net distribution and spraying of houses has been phenomenal. The biggest killer of children is still an important disease. We want to double our efforts in 2008 to make sure that every child in the area sleeps under a net.
• In 2008 we will be building a clinic for HIV patients. We already have 250 people in treatment, and we expect to be treating 750 by this time next year.