OU brings health care to Kenya

During the next few weeks, about 4,000 people in Kenya will receive much-needed medical care through an Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine international program.

Started in 1997, the Student Health Assistance Rural Experience (SHARE) Kenya three-week clinical program sends students, faculty and other clinicians to rural western Kenya to provide free health care, according to an OU-COM news release.

Forty-nine students, faculty and staff members from OU-COM and osteopathic medical colleges in Michigan and Texas left the day after Thanksgiving to participate in this year's program. More than one-half of the physicians making this year's trip are from Ohio, said Peter Dane, D.O., associate dean for predoctoral education at OU-COM, who will serve as medical director while in Kenya.

The SHARE Kenya program began with a commitment by B.S. Bonyo, D.O., a Kenyan native and 1998 graduate of OU-COM, to take medical care to the people in his village, many of whom helped finance his travel expenses to the United States. He decided to become a physician, he said, after seeing his sister die of dehydration at the age of 9.

In 2006, Bonyo celebrated the completion of a permanent clinic in his village of Masara, where OU-COM participants will work. According to the OU-COM alumnus, the free clinics offered through the SHARE Kenya program represent the only time many of these patients see a physician.

The participants each pay their own way trip and carry with them more than 50 pounds of donated medicines, eyeglasses and other medical supplies, much of which will be used during the trip, Dane said in the release.

One participant, JoAnn Bray, OU-COM director of clinical competency assessment, successfully led an effort to collect more than $500 to fund more than 1,000 pairs of eyeglasses. The glasses were purchased through RestoringVision.com, a charitable initiative dedicated to delivering reading glasses to underprivileged people throughout the world.

Dane said the group expects to treat a variety of medical conditions, especially HIV-related issues, tuberculosis and diarrheal diseases due to contaminated water.

"Everyone who participates comes back with a sense of satisfaction, proud to being able to provide health care to people who don't have it," Dane said.