Life is not easy for the typical family in Kenya, as we have discovered. On the 14th December we realised that although little Brenda had been attending a nearby clinic for a chest complaint it was getting worst, she was struggling to breathe. Brenda’s mother had AIDS which affected her mind & as a result she beat Brenda as she ate soil when she was hungry, she is about 2.5 years old and her little face and body is covered in scars from the beatings she received. Unlike the UK there is no NHS here so it is matter of going to different hospitals trying to get the best treatment. As she was so poorly the only hospital that was willing to admit her was Nyali Paediatric Hospital and although we knew it was expensive it was her only chance for survival. She was diagnosed with acute pneumonia and as soon as the doctor saw her he voiced his concerns about her survival chances.
Early the next morning Salim who had arrived at the orphanage with his brother and sister on 4th December was admitted to the same hospital with heart failure. Salim was struggling to breath; his liver & kidneys were not working properly so his body was just suffocating with fluids. What was going wrong. the children were well fed and looked after but two children in the space of 24 hours going down with life threatening chest complaints was very unusual to us. After a long discussion with the resident pediatrician he explained that during this time of the year there are so many airborne bacteria that a high number of children die, we thought that this only happened in the rainy season.
After a few days the children were getting better and Salim was asking to get back out to the orphanage, then on Sunday they agreed to discharge the children, again a massive shock for us, nothing could have prepared us for the actual bill about £850 for the two children and they demanded payment before they would discharge the children. We had arranged a meeting with the main doctor there the previous Wednesday who had given us up to 50% of the normal rates but proper medicines are very expensive over here. So here we were with a medical bill that was the same amount as the monthly salaries for all our staff at The Good Life Orphanage but if the children would not have gone to this hospital they would have died, so we knew we had to get the best treatment for them.
Coming back to get the cheque book to write out a cheque for these cost and wondering just where we would get the money from when I opened an email from Dennis the Heat Teacher at our local Guardian Angels school saying they had raised money for the orphanage instead of doing the normal shoebox collection, this covered the bill with money left over, the Lord does work in very mysterious ways !!!!!!! Here are some photos of Brenda & Salim taken on Christmas Day, as you can see they are fighting fit again xx

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