Rotary Club of Tokyo has teamed up with Rotary Foundation from the USA in terms of a matching grant to enable Rotary Club of Hout Bay to purchase a portable blood pressure/heart reading monitor and other clinical equipment for the HIV/Aids section of Hout Bay Main Road Clinic.
Rotary’s work in supporting HIV/Aids in the area is run in conjunction with the Hout Bay Health Forum under the club's project known as “Operation Medical Hope”.
The original seeding money for the project was in the form of a donation from Hout Bay Rotarian, Rainer Jahn, who retired recently and came to live in the valley after many years of heading up the Daimler/Mercedes Benz’s vehicle business in Tokyo.
He alerted his Rotarian contacts in the Tokyo club to the needs of Rotary Club of Hout Bay and Operation Medical Hope’s work. Rainer’s Japanese Rotarian colleagues rose to the challenge and a similar sum was also obtained from Rotary Foundation in the USA.
In addition to the portable monitor for the clinic, the grant will also be used to purchase much-needed medical consumables for the HIV/Aids homecare and hospice team operating into the nearby township of Imizamo Yethu.
The Main Road Clinic, a government day care clinic headed by Sister Carolus of the City of Cape Town Health Department, has been the subject of a separate building project overseen by Rotarians Butch Liebenberg and Allan Walker, supported by Australian Rotary Coolamon club who have undertaken a similar matching grant with Hout Bay Rotary.
A special opening ceremony for the extensions is planned shortly and the Japanese grant will go a long way towards providing the necessary contents for the building.
Sister Carolus said, “We needed a lightweight and mobile monitor that could carried or wheeled from area to area, from room to room, which would permit easier monitoring under crowded conditions where the lighting is quite poor at times. Rotary have come up with the answer”.
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