For the last week I have been working with a team to perfect two databases which will eventually contain information from 54 health centers. This is a slow and tedious process which oftentimes entails entering a survey in order to find problems, fixing the problems and then starting over again. It can be quite arduous and I have been working from 8-8 most days this week. Needless to say, I am quite tired from all of this work and am looking forward to my trip to Uganda in a week and a half.
Working with data isnt all bad. I am learning many things about these health centers which I would never be able to know otherwise. In many cases, over half of the annual budget of the health centers comes from HIV donors. I never realized how big of a number is was until I started entering these numbers into the computer. Of course a large portion of these donations are in-kind donations and we should be careful before drawing too many conclusions. This makes our research question very interesting becasue we want to know if the integration of HIV funding into the health system has improved the overall health of the country. Since Rwanda made this a law in 2006, it seems like a logical place to study. However, it is still very easy to see how the HIV money is kept seperate from the rest of the health system and integration can be merely an idea that we give credence to, but dont act upon. It will also be interesting to see how efficient these health centers are at delivering services compared with the money they have been given.
Since I have been here a few people have asked me about Saddleback Church and what they are doing to help the aid effort in Rwanda. Apparently there was a big article on the front page of the USA Today about it last week and some guy from their church is going to design sidewalks for the city. Granted, I hope that this is a reality, but I am skeptical of what Saddleback is doing here only because I haven’t seen one shred of evidence that would tell me they are doing work here except for seeing Purpose Driven Life a few times.
According to the article, more than 1,100 volunteers have been here over the past few years: “Working in small groups, they spend about 10 days per trip at a church, listening, praying, teaching subjects such as English or basic hygiene and, as any Saddlebacker will tell you, hugging.” Also, “They have steered local parishioners into hospitals, where they give meals to AIDS patients and make sure they take their medicine on time.” In the actual health centers, the impact I am seeing is from donors like Global Fund, MAP, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Fund, ICAP, and Government funded projects. I have never seen a Saddleback funded health center. If they took those 1100 plane tickets (appx. $2,750,000) they could potentially fund the complete operation of 38 health centers (appx. $72,000 per year). There are only 300 health centers in the country, so Saddleback could potentially fund over 10% of the health system in the country just by staying at home. Of course, the experience of going to the post-genocidal country is sexy and a good way to impress your friends, however, it isnt doing much to improve the lives of the average Rwandan.
*Disclaimer: I could be wrong
