ILEOSTOMY COLOSTOMY ZIMBABWE TRUST
Individual Stories
Elliot Mugoni
Elliot Mugoni aged 11 had a stoma from birth. He was born with a birth defect - an imperferated anus and he is one of ILCO Zimbabwe first youngest member.
He has gone through many operations that have hindered his education attendance and social life. ILCO Zimbabwe was able to connect with Elliot's family to support him with colostomy supplies as well as funds needed for his hospital bills and school fees. Elliot Stays about a 80km from Chiredzi in the rural areas of Chigonono , Matedzi.
Marie Steen from ILCO Sweden together with some three volunteers from sweden visited Ilco Zimbabwe in March , During their Stay in Zimbabwe they visited Elliot at his home.
The short journey seemed long due to a series of challenges faced along the way. We managed to cross the first bridge on foot with aid of sticks. The team then walk about 2km to second bridge however when they got to the second bridge it was heavily flooded and they couldn’t pass , instead saw Elliot and his family from the other side of the river.
Tendai
This is a picture of Tendai, a 9 months old baby, who had skin irritation due to use of napkins around the stoma.
We discovered that at the children's hospital, we assisted around 5 patients, most of them having skin irritation problems. After training nurses and parents, and supplying stoma powder and seals the irritation problems were recorded lower than before.
We encouraged the parents to use ostomy bags when available and those not having access to the colostomy bags to use ointment like Vaseline.
Dorcas
Dorcas , was operated in 2013 due to birth complications. She lives in Gweru, 275km out of Harare and when she heard about ILCO she traveled to Harare with an empty plastic bag of bread rapped around her waist to cover the stoma.
She narrated on how her life has been so difficult. She couldn’t work because of the odor that was coming out from the plastics. She also explained how her family and friends had shunned her and isolated from her.
She received counseling and bags to use. Unfortunately she does not have a phone to communicate with, and we hope that when she is in need of more supply of bags she will come through to our offices again.
James
James lives in Masvingo. After his operation due to strangulation of bowels , he went back to work , but almost a year later , his stoma prolapse.
Due to his prolapse he could not got back to work nor did he have money for the operation to rectify the problem. He was admitted in hospital for three months with no income and relied on family and friends for support.
However with the assistance from ILCO Zim, we managed to get him big stoma bags to use and a letter from social welfare for the operation to be done for free . The operation was done successfully and his colostomy was reversed.
He is currently not working and looking for a job , he is grateful for the support and hopes to get a job soon and support his family.
Tafadzwa
The bellow patient was operated in 2014, after his ileostomy operation he could not find any bags locally, the ones he found where very expensive and he could not afford them.
His relatives working in South Africa started sending bags to him. Due to lack of knowledge they sent him one part piece of a two piece bag, when the bags arrived they could not use them and they took a string which the tied around his waist to support the bag, the opening was too big and it caused skin irritation and sores
