COVID-19 Emergency
Because of Covid-19 emergency, One-Stop Centre and Stop The Violence activities were interrupted and a help line was activated to listen and support victims of violence and to coordinate interventions with the hospital and the police. Finally, on 4th May, after about a month of lockdown, Anti-Violence Unit was reopened in Kanyama Hospital. PRO.SA Foundation has supported the purchase of devices such as white coats, masks, disposable gloves, liquid soap, and chlorine for all the project’s operators. The hospital, although having limited tools, has implemented basic rules of conduct to prevent infection. At the entrance there is a huge water bucket where an attendant makes sure that everybody would wash their hands and takes their temperature. The hospital, made of containers and tents, is half empty compared to usual: many departments were closed, the personnel is reduced by half, and industrious volunteers and cleaners walk around the hospital, equipped with a hose, to clean and to fill buckets with water for hand-washing. The maternity ward, where more than 50 babies are born every day, is currently hosting only the new mothers and their new-borns, who are still lying together in the same bed, but there are no relatives outside waiting for them. Mothers who bring to the hospital children from 0 to 5 years old for vaccines and check-ups, normally a hundred per day, must go to nearby schools that being closed are offering a space. Within the TBC department, in the same container where Stop the Violence operators work, patients have been divided according to the day. Compared to the hundreds of patients who used to crowd there, now there are ten patients per time waiting outside and at a safe distance and they are admitted one by one. In the meanwhile, Stop the Violence operators have just reopened their small office in a container module.
Since minibus can be very dangerous because of the crowd, the lack of windows and the impossibility of protecting yourself and keeping a distance, through the fundraiser on Facebook, PRO.SA supported the purchase of a Mobile Unit for the daily transport of the operators on dutry and the victims, allowing the smooth running of the activities.
