The numbers above seems a little mysterious, but it has to do with what you who have given to the inmate account have contributed to. I asked Josh last week how many inmates they think they’ve treated and how many lives they think they’ve saved in the clinic they run with the help of funds from the “Inmate to Inmate” account. Josh and Tjostolv think they’ve given about 2700 treatments to inmates while they’ve been in the Central Prison. A person could’ve been treated several times. They also assume that they have saved over 20 prisoners’ lives that have been terminally ill.
Not too long ago I wrote that Josh and Tjostolv could get what they need of medication and supplies to the clinic into the prison. The Congolese we pay also buys the supplies locally. Earlier it was much harder and we had to smuggle in what’s needed to the clinic. We had to buy it in Norway and send it with someone who was going there.
There has been a breakout of cholera in Kisangani and surrounding areas. More than 900 have been infected and over 150 are dead according to information we’ve managed to get. We also heard that there has been an outbreak of meningitis, but we haven’t managed to get any more information about that, so maybe there have just been one or two individual cases. We hope the cholera doesn’t spread to the prison. That could become a crisis very fast because of the crowded prison and poor sanitary conditions etc.
THANKS AGAIN TO ALL OF YOU WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE TO HELP SOM MANY PRISONERS WITH YOU MONEY GIFTS.
Kari Hilde French, April 10th 2011
