It is not easy to raise a child with special needs. Malawi’s health, education and social welfare structures remain ill-equipped to serve the needs of children who require dedicated professionals to catch up on their development milestones before their bodies overgrow the stages.
Children with special needs from Chigumula Township in Blantyre and surrounding areas suffered a blow in 2018 following the closure of SOS Children’s Village in Machinjiri, where they were accessing physiotherapy services.
Jacaranda Foundation, which was sending children with special needs from its school for orphans, had nowhere to take them for rehabilitation.
Its founder Marie Da Silva raised funds for the construction of a community physiotherapy clinic to bring the specialised skills closer home.
The American Embassy supported the construction of Jacaranda Community Physiotherapy Clinic in Chigumula, which attracts clients from as far as Thyolo and Mulanje districts.
According to Da Silva, the facility serves 71 children weekly.
Eight years on, the growing demand pushed Da Silva to extend the facility with support from her friend Michele Adder who dedicated the project to her husband, William Jacob Green.
Da Silva says: “Seeing children who could not move their limbs achieving mobility and progressing in school motivated me to find a solution to the space challenge that the facility was facing.
“Some of the children who were here five years ago are now walking and attending school at Jacaranda. They are in the pre-school and two are in primary school. And more and more in the upper classes.”
Pius Chiwale arrived at Jacaranda after a surgical procedure to fix her spine could not be carried out at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre.
Jacaranda Foundation director Luc Deschamps, who accompanied Pius and his mother Fyness to Philadelphia, US, says the child underwent three successful procedures in four months.
“It was an extremely important life-saving operation. It was a race against time and he is now doing much better. We are looking forward to further treatment. But basically it started from here,” he says.
The clinic is staffed by doctors and physiotherapists from the Kamuzu University for Health Sciences (Kuhes).
It has become a referral facility for similar institutions that help children with special needs.
Today, Kuhes students and interns work at the facility all year round.
Jacaranda Community
Lead physiotherapist Lusungu Mtawali Tembo says the clinic is poised to serve more people in its new wing.
“The new wing has more space which is going to provide extra service apart from physiotherapy,” she says.
Tembo says the expansion facility puts the facility on path to growth.
“We will now be offering occupational therapy and speech therapy,” she says. “The common conditions we attended to at the clinic include cerebral palsy and general delays in growth milestones.”
Mercy Mpunga, centre manager for Malawi Council for Disability Affairs’ Bangwe Factory, says the expansion is a “significant milestone in the life of children with disabilities”.
“The opening of this community physiotherapy clinic represents transformation and hope. We need early intervention. Timely physiotherapy services help the country not to lose out because children have overgrown for rehabilitation. What Jacaranda Foundation is doing is what we want as a nation,” she says.
Malawi Against Physical Disabilities chief executive officer Mike Nyirenda sees the extension opens an extra door of opportunity for children with special needs in a country where primary public healthcare facilities do not always offer physiotherapy services.
“This clinic will help a lot in provision of rehabilitation services and physiotherapy in the communities around Jacaranda Centre,” he says.
Nyirenda expresses hope that the facility will improve well-being of children who require timely specialised healthcare.
He says: “I am impressed with the facility and it is my wish that this centre is going to become one of the centres of excellence.
“Looking at the infrastructure that they have and at the same time with the dedication of the providers coupled with the leadership that they have at the facility, they will surely shine.”
BCA resident Grenda Dzoole whose one-and-a-half-year-old daughter is one of the clients, shares the optimism.
She says: “When my child first came here she was not able to touch anything. Now she is able to touch. I can now see progress.
“So, through the opening of the new wing, I believe, we will benefit more because by the end of this month, she will make even greater progress.”
Dzoole calls upon parents with children with disabilities to seize the opportunity and not to feel discouraged by the stigma that is associated with disability in society.
