Everyone desires to live well. Living well means a good health. A healthy life, however is a tough challenge for a majority of the people to maintain it, especially those from the informal settlements, Kibera being one of them.
A number of reasons have contributed to this poor conditions of health. The most prone in the informal settlement, just but a few are: poor sanitation, lack of balanced diet, climate change and exposure to harmful chemicals.
Kibera as a slum is not spared by these challenges either. Poor attendace in schools is attributed to various illness. The most reported cases of illnesses include Typhoid, Malaria and diarrhea etc.
As one walks along the different streets of kibera,you will notice exposed sewage systems, chanelled to different locations, some passing along the doorsteps and others near entrance to hotels, some of this collide with broken water pipes that pass clean water for consumption. The water(mixed with the sewage) ends up in our stomachs unoticingly leading to a typhoid and other related water borne disseases. These sometimes causes bad odour because the sewage affects the respiratory system leading to serious respiratory infections.
Some of the hotels operate illegally and some tend not to have a good preservative mechanisms of their foods. You are likely to find exposed foods that are normally exposed to flies which causes germs and the food is later sold to consumers. This health hazards are preventable if only some measures are put into consideration by both the individuals, private entities and also the government.
Besides the few goverrment health centeres in the area, thanks to the private health centeres that form a majority of the clinics in Kibera. Mostly the NGO’s , Missionaries and Religious clinics, have been set up to serve the community to their level best.
On a visit to various clinics around, you will find an overwhelming number of patients waiting on the long queues to be served. This shows how important the need for health care is to human beings and how it can solve the many problems we have.
There has been a collaboration of well renowned hospital with the locals and NGO based health service providers by helping in bringing the services at the doorstep of people. Some have even used the public addressing system as they move around to get the community enlightened and to have access to the free medical services available.
Your tomorrow’s life will be based on your today’s efforts towards your health!