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| SOS Medical Centres provide for the basic needs of SOS Children and the children of the broader community. |
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Photo: Mr. D. Sansoni |
SOS medical facilities provide for the basic medical needs of SOS children, their broader communities, and, in exceptional cases such as the SOS Emergency Aid Clinic in Mogadishu, they work to respond to national crisis demands.
So far SOS Children's Villages has set up over fifty medical centres outside of Europe that are helping people who would not otherwise have access to medical facilities. These centres are attached to SOS Children's Villages and are designed to meet basic local medical needs, as well as cover some specialist needs such as obstetrics some preventative medical services.
The aim of the SOS Medical Centres is to improve the public health standard in the local communities; playing a preventive role through information and vaccination programs, reducing infant mortality rates by stabilizing and providing for undernourished children, and providing first aid in the case of accidents.
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| Many clinics have their own laboratory, a small ward and a pharmacy. |
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Photo: Ms. C. Flore Ngo Biyack |
The clinics are usually open seven days a week and normally offer out-patient treatment and preventive medicine (vaccinations, courses on hygiene, prophylactics, nutrition, first aid etc). Many clinics also have their own laboratory, a small ward and a pharmacy. They have a qualified staff of state registered nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians and doctors.
SOS Children's Villages also operates mother-and-child clinics, which offer ante- and post-natal care as well as childbirth facilities, plus the necessary vaccinations for babies. In order to improve awareness of the need for a high standard of ante- and post-natal medical care, expectant mothers and mothers with babies are issued with record cards for their visits and the treatment and vaccinations received. In addition SOS Children's Villages builds small dental clinics and medical facilities for handicapped children and youngsters.
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| People from the community wait outside an SOS medical centre for medical attention. |
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Photo: Ms. C. Flore Ngo Biyack |
One of the biggest challenges of the past few years and for the future has been and will continue to be in the dramatic increase in HIV/AIDS. This is especially the case in many African countries, but some Asian and Latin American countries are significantly affected as well. The rate of HIV infections has taken on such proportions that the social basis, the economic strength, and the inner structures of whole communities have been weakened. They now stand before immense challenges which the individual countries, regions and households are unable to cope with on their own.
The SOS Medical Centres must also develop new concepts and strategies in order to be able to react to the changing demands. An increasing number of information campaigns about the risk of infection and against discrimination against AIDS infected people are being carried out in many of the medical centres, especially in the African countries. Advice and support is being offered to the relatives of people with HIV as well as medical treatment for those infected.