07/16/2006

ARC International runs programs to improve hygiene and a clinic to provide health care. ARC’s clinic treats about 50 people a day, but many more show up. Like these women, they wait until they are evaluated by a health consultant, who decides whether the case is serious enough to see a doctor. The clinic currently has three health consultants and hopes to hire two more to boost its capacity. But it is hard to find trained health workers in remote Gereida. Most of the clinic’s patients are women and children, who comprise about 80% of the population of camps for refugees and internally displaced people.