Urgent Needs

Our most recent emergency runs to the hospital for women in labor, which resulted in a nearly dead woman still in the hospital, and another dead baby, have lead us to realize that we have only two truly urgent needs:

1. A Community Health House near the hospital where pregnant women nearing their due date can stay. There, we can have an ultrasound taken (only US$17 at a private clinic!), and drive the women to the hospital when they begin their labor. Such a Community Health House would give new mothers a safe, clean environment for the first few days after childbirth.  Additionally, the house would give women and men who have recently undergone tubal ligation or vasectomy (birth control) surgery quiet and clean place to convalesce during the short recovery period. (on our way to establish it, thanks to many donors, and the membership of the American Humanist Association, the Roxbury Foundation, Dr. Edgar Yee and Mrs. Pamela Yee, Brendan Randall and Cathleen Randall, the students of Prof. Ken Filchak at the University of Notre Dame, the resident of Kirkland House at Harvard University, and Sara Choi and Jon Figdor of Harvard) Still need US$5,000 to support the house for a full year, so if you are thinking of a donation, now would be a good time.
2. A Vehicle to transport pregnant women from the forest to the hospital and from the town hospital to the larger hospital 135km away, in case they need a c-section. There is no anesthesiologist in the town near the community. The hospital has an ambulance (a plain van, better described), but too often it is broken, or already in use. There’s only one functioning ambulance for 15,000 people.

We need this NOW. No more dead babies, please.

Other less important things are: digital video camera (got it thanks to a donor!) to document Hunan Rights abuses, a laptop computer for our Rights Monitors to communicage through Skype when the local Internet cafe is closed (got it, thanks to Brendan Randall!), a Skype phone (got it, thanks to Hostal Dona Chava, donating their internet line and computers!), and a wireless router (got it, thanks to Brendan Randall!).