With support from the Schmidt Family Foundation, RW opened a state-of-the-art health center in Juru sector in September 2011. The new health center serves 21,000 people who previously had severely impaired access to health services: many had to travel upwards of three hours – often by foot – to visit the closest health facility.
Juru Health Center is home to the full array of health services: it offers consultation and procedures rooms, a hospitalization wing, a laboratory equipped to perform rapid tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV testing, health education programming, pre-natal and maternity care, and confidential family planning services. In October 2011, RW funded and oversaw the installation of a series of solar panels that will enable the facility to provide top-quality health services at all hours of the night until electricity from the grid reaches the facility.
New hygienically safe push faucets have been installed at every water source at Juru Health Center, a simple but important intervention that will help the facility to conserve water and will reduce the spread of disease among patients and staff. An orchard of locally-grown, grafted fruit trees now grows on the premises, whose fruit will be used for nutrition demonstrations and programming. The facility also boasts external latrines and showers and an industrial kitchen with fuel-efficient cookstoves.