A Speaker No Show & Rotary Research Instead

 When a speaker doesn't show up with no explanation and no subsequent apology it's infuriating.

Instead a little research by myself and Andrew Paschalides.  It was initiated by Andrew as he had heard of Luso Africa Restaurant Mundo Portugues at the Portuguese Sports Club in Walnut Avenue, Primrose via his neighbour.

It was pleasant, slightly spartan but the food was excellent and well priced.  We both had calamari which so often is tough and overcooked  but it was perfect.  A generous plateful for R100.  What was extraordinary was the wine list.  We had a 2019 Periquita which is a very worthwhile standard Portuguese red wine, a blend of three Portuguese cultivars which we don't grow here at all.  It was R120, less than Nederburg Rose!

I have been receiving their daily specials that are really interesting and have appeal to me.  

Plate of the Day / Prato do Dia

🍵Sopa  - Caldo verde @R25.00/Kale soup @R25.00.

🍽️Carne de porco á Alentejana @R140.00 /Pork & clam meat served with cubed fried chips @ R140.00

🍽️Feijoada de chocos @R110.00/Cuttlefish bean stew@R110.00

We thought it would be worthwhile for a Saturday Social Rotary Lunch.

This Week

It should be an interesting report back to the club as there has been a strategic planning meeting and then a board meeting which should really indicate the way that President Ron Smith hopes his year will pan out.  It was decided that we would replace the mid month speaker meeting with a general discussion meeting that would major on a couple of projects and possible new ones as the experimental one we had early this month was such a success.  If it becomes irrelevant than it will obviously revert to a speaker meeting.

The Promise of Kangaroo Mother Care

By Kristi Eaton

At birth, a baby kangaroo climbs into its mother's pouch, latches onto a nipple, and stays put until it is more fully developed. Now imagine if you could do something similar for a human baby who is born prematurely. That's the concept behind a low-tech intervention known as kangaroo mother care.

"Kangaroo mother care involves skin-to-skin care with the mother or with another family member: The father, grandmother, aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters have all done it," says Doug McMillan, a member of the Rotary Club of Calgary, Alberta, and a neonatologist experienced in global child health. Mothers get support to breastfeed exclusively, and if someone else is helping with the kangaroo care, the baby is fed stored breast milk.

The method was developed more than four decades ago in Colombia, when physician researchers Edgar Rey Sanabria and Héctor Martínez-Gómez were looking for a way to keep babies warm and with their mothers because their hospital didn't have incubators for low birthweight newborns. The death rate for low birth-weight infants at their hospital was 70 percent at the time.

 Since then, multiple studies have shown kangaroo mother care saves newborn lives: It maintains better temperature, improves nutrition and growth, decreases infection, and enhances the bonding between the mother and the baby, explains McMillan, a member of The Rotary Foundation Cadre of Technical Advisers. It has benefits for mothers too, reducing postpartum depression and enhancing their perceived ability to care for their newborns.

But while child mortality has otherwise declined dramatically, 1.6 million premature or low birth-weight babies die every year in their first month, according to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More than 75 percent of deaths of premature babies are preventable using current knowledge and basic clinical care.

In Uganda, the neonatal mortality rate is about 19 per 1,000 live births. In recent years at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, southwest of the capital of Kampala, about 200 babies admitted to the neonatal unit died each year. About 70 percent were preterm. The two major causes of death were hypothermia, as infants born early are often too small to keep themselves warm, and infections — two conditions complicated by malnutrition.

That's where Rotarians stepped in. The Rotary clubs of Mbarara, Uganda, and Calgary at Stampede Park, Alberta, applied for a Rotary Foundation global grant to upgrade the kangaroo care program at the hospital.

Through the project, which began in late 2020, more than 40 nurses, midwives, pediatricians, and other doctors have been trained in kangaroo care. The project has also supported the development of a curriculum for health care workers to use to teach mothers how to do kangaroo care. The curriculum has been translated into the local language and printed, and mothers are now able to train other mothers on the method.

Women made 500 kangaroo mother care wraps as part of the project, generating income in the area. The wraps are easier to use and better accepted than the kangas, or pieces of cloth, mothers may have used earlier to carry around their babies, says McMillan, who has been volunteering in Mbarara for over 20 years. Meanwhile, Rotarians were able to secure meals for mothers who needed food, which has improved breastfeeding and reduced the rate of women leaving hospital care early.

In addition, the grant helped fund improvements in the newborn unit. Before the grant, in January 2020, the unit had just one thermometer and lacked other equipment. At least two babies would share a cot, often with a torn mattress, increasing the risk of spreading infections. The newborn unit now has the equipment to treat sick babies, more bed space, and chairs to sit on, explains Sheila Abaasa, past president of the Rotary Club of Mbarara.