Any help is welcome

Meeting a community-based social health center in Koumassi – Abidjan

For more than 20 years, the medical center of the Missionary Sisters of Saint Therese of the Child of Jesus is present in Ivory Coast. Located in Koumassi, a working-class district of the capital Abidjan, the Sisters are committed to promoting the social well-being and health of the community’s population.

Through its activity covering medical and social causes, the center has set up a library, a literacy unit, a school canteen and a medical treatment service. The latter has particularly been established for pregnant women and patients infected with HIV or AIDS.

At its visits, YouTooday was overwhelmed by the energy and the joy of all those who are involved in the daily activity of the center, starting with the Latin American Sisters and ending with doctors, nurses, teachers, patients and local learners!

The center teaches 180 female learners to read and write, while on parallel the clinic receives around 140 patients per day. The dispensary mainly receives patients that require an obstetrics or post-natal consultation, a vaccine, or a treatment against HIV / AIDS. Alone in 2017, the medical centre has recorded a turnover of 1800 patients.

At present, the clinic employs five midwives and four temporary doctors. To give an idea of ​​the care provider – patient relationship, four midwives take care of 70 pregnant women, 3 midwives of 60. A usual working day starts early in the morning and ends, in theory, around 3 to 3:30 pm. In practice, however, patients may keep arriving until 9pm in the evening!

Several partnerships have been established yet between the St. Therese center and charitable organizations thanks to which it has been existing continously since its inauguration in Ivory Coast twenty years ago. Nonetheless, it is also largely due to all of us, the individual people who uphold the very values ​​of humanity, sharing and joy of life, that the Missionary Sisters in Anklomiabla are able to maintain their inspiring activity for the benefit of the people in need in Koumassi:

Whether by the local bakery which regularly supplies them with their daily bread or by a little kid wishing to give all its disposable diapers that it no longer needs. All donations that can support the training activity or the clinic in any way are welcome.

In fact, “Everything that can be donated, makes everyone happy.”

 We thank the Missionary Sisters of St Theresa of the Child of Jesus for this inspiring exchange. Special thanks to Sister Dalia and Sister Dora for introducing us to the center, its activities and challenges. We are moved by the perseverance, generosity and charity of all the Sisters towards the patients and are delighted to support the medical-social center and its beneficiaries.