Angola, Camabatela

After 30 years of civil war, the Province's government is currently restoring the infra-structures in the area, such as streets and railways, but they still are in very poor condition. At present, it takes two to three hours to cover 100 km. According to Government figures, after the end of the war, approximately 1.8 million displaced people had returned to their areas of origin by the end of March 2003, and 303,426 moved back to the provinces of Uige. Nonetheless, only 220.000 people have relocated under an organised plan.

Official estimates show that 70% of them have returned to areas where the pre-conditions for resettlement were not in place, i.e., without any form of assistance from local authorities or humanitarian organisations. A large majority of these people are vulnerable to outbreaks of disease due to the absence of basic health and social services.

Because it was situated right on the front line of the war, the clinic and the houses of the Sisters suffered from repeated attacks by the conflicting armies, and they still bear the signs of the bullets. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd provide assistance to the population in the most primitive conditions.

Keeping contact from Camabatela with the other towns or with the capital is very difficult due to the lack of telephones lines, plus the scarcity of electricity and of viable roads. The local health sector has serious problems in terms of distribution of services in the Province, plus accommodation for the sick. This is the main cause of the very high mortality rate in the Province, together with the low levels of deliveries attended by skilled health workers, the low levels of pre-natal care, low levels of vaccination against tetanus, poor nutrition and illness (especially malaria). The Sisters  have provided since 1969 very comprehensive assistance to the population: education for children in the parish school, sewing training for women, healthcare for sick people.  They make a daily contribution towards mending the enormous social wounds left by the war, integrating the very scarce, nearly nonexistent, assistance offered by the Government.

Over the years, the Good Shepherd Sisters’s clinic has become a reference point, especially for local women, so much so, that some of them insist that their children be delivered in the clinic despite the lack of beds and equipment. At present the clinic is made of small single one-story units non connected to one another, built in 1991-1992, during the civil war.

The material used for construction is a mixture of clay, clay, straw and water, the only raw materials available in the territory. The walls have been dilapidated by rains and hot weather. The rooms have not been designed following hygienic or medical principles, therefore there is not enough light or aeration, there are no adequate toilets, plumbing, electricity or lavatories both for patients and medical staff.

In each unit there are at present two rooms with a variable number of beds depending on the number of patients who need to remain in the clinic. There are no closets and very few equipment. Beds are made of wood tables laying on unstable iron grids. Mattresses, where available, consist of mats covered with blankets or typical cloth used by women in Angola. In a room used as a ambulatory are collected the few medical instruments used by the Sisters and a few assistants. The two rooms equipped as dormitories for the patients are separated by a curtain, to divide men from women. The number of women, however, is well above that of men, decimated by war. In front of the building where patients are accommodated, there is a circular structure covered with bamboo that serves as a waiting room.

The diseases most commonly encountered are: childhood diabetes, epilepsy, malaria, infections of various kinds, child malnutrition. Many are the cases of pregnant women who have infections of various kinds, or that are come to the clinic to deliver their babies.

The clinic is well reputed in the area for the quality of service and humanity with which Sister Marcellina treats the patients. Many people even if they know well the difficult hygienic conditions and poverty the hospital, prefer to go to this structure rather than in nearby governmental structures that lack medicines and staff. Sr Marcelina relies on the funds of the Congregation or on occasional aid from benefactors to buy medicines and to keep alive the program aimed at ensuring adequate nutrition of children.