Polyclinique Espérantia & Fraternité mission statement:

“Adequate and Sustainable Responses to the Real Needs of the Communities”

 

 

HEALTH: Properly addressing and meeting the real needs of the communities in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) remains one of the biggest challenges of Primary Health Care. Lack of adequate supplies, poverty, low literacy rates, scarcity of government resources,  allocated for health and poor quality of medicine, are the major causes contributing to the lack of quality medical care.

 

Unlike in Western Countries where health coverage is readily available, most developing countries such as DRC, there is no health insurance coverage on a large scale basis unless one is employed via the utilities companies and through some private businesses. In addition, the unemployment rate in Kikwit is almost 75%, thus adding to the number of individuals without affordable health coverage. However, the government has made an effort to alleviate this problem. Yet there is more to do because the majority of people in these communities have no health coverage – (insurance).

 

To improve the accessibility and availability of health care in those remote or neglected regions, churches, groups and Non-Government Organizations (NGO) play a key role in helping the state fulfill its goal of global health.

In Kikwit “Polyclinique” Esperantia & Fraternité (PEF) is the health branch of the NGO named Foundation for Communities Development (FCD). Since 1998 this small clinic had been dedicated to providing adequate health care to individuals beyond the town of Kikwit and the Province of Bandundu.

 

People will first seek care from Esperantia via referral from either Kinshasa (400 miles from Kikwit) where most medical specialties are available or in Vanga where an American Baptist Hospital is located (which is 80 or 100 miles from Kikwit).

Esperantia Clinic and its clinical facilities have solved those kinds of problems in Kikwit for more than a decade.

In our maternity ward and delivery room we usually have not enough room for the newborn.