 Adama Gondor will be keeping a regular diary for the BBC News website
about running a clinic in a coastal slum of Sierra Leone's capital,
Freetown.
Here she discusses the challenges she faces in Kroo Bay, where shanty houses
have been built on a rubbish dump on the banks of the Crocodile River.
It's extremely difficult to run an efficient clinic here in Kroo Bay.
I am the Community Health Officer (CHO) at Kroo Bay clinic. A CHO is a
paramedic who works in Sierra Leone's community health clinics as the head of
the clinic.
Since I took over last October I haven't had the supply of drugs that I need.
Kroo Bay is one of the toughest places to live in the world and most of the
patients I treat are ill because they lack the very basic medical requirements
and drugs.
 The biggest health problems for children in this community are diarrhoea,
respiratory diseases - such as pneumonia and coughs - worm infestation and also
malaria.
We try and make the most of the drugs we have but often patients go to drug
peddlers instead.
I am trained in raising the health of communities and I am really excited to
be here and trying to make a difference.
But when I first arrived I was a bit worried when I saw the community and the
environment here.
Dirt and smells
Pregnancy can cause many problems for us in Kroo Bay as most people deliver
their babies at home.
We encourage them to come to the clinic, but they don't, then if anything
goes wrong during delivery they rush to bring them here.
The clinic is also used as a meeting place and school
We don't have a delivery kit at the clinic; the nurse brings her own personal
one for deliveries.
We can't sterilise anything here and we have nothing to dress wounds with.
In the clinic we don't even have equipment for minor surgery.
And the clinic is dirty - we have to clean the dust away several times a day,
and often we have the most awful smells.
The community uses the clinic for other purposes - for meetings and for a
school - but this is a clinic.
The toilet facilities are very poor; there are cracks all over the building;
the cupboards are broken; rats come inside; we don't have enough locks and
people have stolen the window glass.
In terms of equipment we have hardly anything at all.
This is a clinic in only the most basic of terms.
Save the Children
has launched an interactive website where Kroo Bay residents answer questions
about their lives.
BBC NEWS | Africa |
Profile: Sierra Leone's slum medic
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