KCE executive director Dr. Ron Dieckmann lead a team to the village of Ukwala in western Kenya in December, 2011 to train rural physicians and clinic staff in PEMSoft software utilization. The remote Matibabu Clinic, where the team spent two days, is in its final weeks of existence, as staff prepare to move operations to a new modern hospital for women and children a few miles away. The new facility is a product of years of fundraising by the Matibabu Foundation--based in Nairobi, Kenya and Oakland, California and will be the most advanced health care facility in hundreds of miles. The clinic and new hospital are actively supported by the grandmother of President Barack Obama, who is a neighbor and patient of Dr. Gail Wagner, the Hayward-based oncologist who co-founded Matibabu—a word that means “healing” in Swahili.

Dr. Dieckmann, his daughter Hayley, and wife Patty Gates spent the day at the crowded, dilapidated clinic training and installing PEMSoft software with the staff. When the new hospital opens, the staff will install the software on the computer network—so that all clinical staff will have instant access to state-of-the-art medical information. This represents a gigantic improvement in medical reference support: the current clinic has only a single outdated hard copy medical reference for clinicians caring for over 30,000 patients a year.  Malaria, HIV/AIDS TB, diseases of the skin, and diarrhea are the most common conditions.

The Matibabu Foundation executive director Daniel Ogola will be interviewed this January, 2012. He has gained significant attention in Kenya because of his relentless fight to improve care of impoverished children in rural communities.

Dr. Ron Dieckmann (middle)  with Daniel Ogola, executive director of the Matibabu Foundation (R) and his assistant Winifred Esther Nthambi in Nairobi (L).	Ukwala clinic staff, Kenya