The Clinics We Support
The March mission lasts a few weeks. Illness does not. Two clinics carry care through the rest of the year. Our partner MEADBS runs them; ACO equips them and keeps them supplied.
Two clinics, seven hundred kilometres apart.
They are separate places doing separate jobs, and neither belongs to ACO. Both are run by MEADBS, ACO’s mission partner in Senegal. The base clinic sits beside the MEADBS missionary base outside Dakar and has been treating patients year-round for years. The Kédougou clinic began at a leprosy village at the other end of the country, and is being developed into a community clinic for the families around it. Neither is the hospital — that is a third project, on land at Mbourokh Toucouleur near Dakar.
Base Clinic, near Dakar
Open all year beside the MEADBS missionary base outside Dakar, this is the clinic that keeps working when the mission team has flown home. MEADBS staffs it and carries the daily work; ACO equips it and keeps its pharmacy stocked.
Kédougou Community Clinic
Not a new building on empty ground — the next stage of a clinic that has been treating people for years. It began serving the leprosy village in Kédougou, and the plan is to develop it into a clinic for the wider community around it.
The leprosy-village clinic
The clinic has served the leprosy village in Kédougou for years, and ACO has supported that care throughout — the community that first drew the team to that end of Senegal, and where Dr. Faye was travelling when he died.
A clinic for the wider community
MEADBS plans to develop it into a community clinic providing year-round access to basic medical care for local families and surrounding communities. ACO has committed to supporting that work as it grows.
- Year-round basic medical care, not only during the March mission
- A local base for visiting medical teams
- A place from which community health programmes can run
What ACO’s support looks like.
ACO does not run these clinics. MEADBS staffs them and carries the daily work. ACO’s part is to make sure the people who do have what they need — the equipment to diagnose, and the medicine to treat.
Equipment that changes the diagnosis
Ultrasound and ECG machines are among the equipment ACO has donated. They are what let a clinic hours from the nearest hospital look inside a patient instead of guessing.
Medicine, every year
Several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of medication goes to these two clinics each year. It is the largest single part of what ACO provides, and it is what keeps their pharmacies from running empty between missions.
A standing commitment
ACO also supports several of the health workers at the base clinic. This is not a one-time gift: ACO intends to keep both clinics supplied for as long as they serve — and the care of the leprosy village at Kédougou in particular.
How the clinics fit with the rest.
The clinics are one of four strands of ACO’s medical work: the mission that arrives each March, the partner clinics ACO supplies between missions, the hospital being built near Dakar, and the training that means local people can carry all of it.
Annual Medical & Surgical Care
The mission that arrives each March — village clinics, donated medication, and surgery with local hospital teams.
Learn moreDr. Idrissa Faye Memorial Hospital
A separate project, on land already bought at Mbourokh Toucouleur on the outskirts of Dakar.
Learn moreMedical Education & Training
Students training beside physicians, and the training ACO plans for Senegalese healthcare professionals.
Learn more