Health and well-being is of low priority to a street child, particularly when compared to finding food or a safe place to sleep. But when illness gets in the way of finding the next meal there is no choice left but to seek treatment.
However, street children usually find it near impossible to get medical help. Hospitals are forced to turn these children away because they cannot pay or have no identity documents. For this reason, the mobile clinic service is a boon for street children who are otherwise unable to access public healthcare.
Poverty Child coordinates a network of doctors that provide surgery time for street children. Each doctor hosts their makeshift clinic accessible to street children, providing a checkup and treatment to every child. Parents are helped too.
Patient cases normally range from diarrhoea to wounds dressed with dirty rags. Issues that cannot be treated are taken back to the community clinic.
Every patient-doctor contact provides an opportunity to give advice on how to keep good hygiene and its impact on general health and well-being. This kind of health training helps to reduce the risk of further illness. But more importantly the clinic service gives us to build trust with every child creating further opportunities for us to enable them to improve their lives.