Getting Sick

When a child in a village in Congo gets sick, it's not as easy to go to a doctor as in Western countries like the U.S. and Canada. There are no doctors' offices outside of the hospitals, and many villages are a long ways from a hospital. There are no ambulances out in the villages, and people don't have cars.

If kids aren't too sick, the family will take care of them at home and hope they get better. If not, the parents will take them to a clinic. There are a lot more clinics than hospitals, so most people live closer to a clinic. Even so, it takes a long time to walk there or to carry a child on a bicycle. At the clinic there is a nurse, and there are some kinds of medicines. But there are a lot of things missing in the clinics -- for instance, some of them don't even have stethoscopes or thermometers! The Paul Carlson Partnership is now buying the most important equipment for 93 clinics in the Ubangi region, so soon families will be able to trust that they can get some real help when they get there.

If a child is sick enough to need a doctor, the family needs to take him or her to a hospital. That takes a long time and is very hard when a kid is very sick and there are no cars. The Paul Carlson Partnership helps four hospitals in the Ubangi: one at Karawa (care'-ah-wah), one at Loko (you can pronounce that!), one at Wasolo (wah-soh'-loh), and one at Bokada (boh-kah'-dah). You can click here for more information pictures of these hospitals.

At the hospital a doctor can examine the child and treat him or her with medicines, or even an operation if needed. The hospitals aren't as comfortable as we have in our country. Some of the beds have mats instead of mattresses, and there isn't as much special equipment as we have here. Also, the hospitals in Congo don't provide meals, so a patient's family has to come along and make food for the patient to eat!

You can see some more pictures of hospitals in Congo on our Flickr page. There are more pictures of clinics there too.