Bronx pharmacist returns from aid mission to Rwanda

By Judith Doolin Spikes

Joel Zive’s third trip to set up a specialized AIDS pharmacy in Kigali, Rwanda, began and ended in frustration, but he found a lot of satisfaction and adventure in between.

Zive, an Ardsley High School graduate who still resides in the school district and is a third-generation pharmacist/owner in the Bronx, became involved in the project in January 2005, after a fortuitous meeting with Dr. Kathryn Anastos, an AIDS researcher with the Rwanda Women’s Study and Assessment and a clinic in Rwanda run by Women’s Equity in Access to Care & Treatment (WE-ACTx).

Inspired by Anastos’ work, Zive impulsively offered his services and tow weeks later was on a plane for Kigali, the Rwandan capital, with crates of donated computer equipment. His mission was to set up a modern pharmacy organized for research at the WE-ACTx clinic there and to train local pharmacists in its operation. That trip, Zive says, “really changed my life.” Upon his return, he founded a non-profit organization, Prescription for Hope, to offer his prototype to others in need of similar services.

On Feb. 17, Zive returned to Kigali intending to complete his work in 12 days. But the frustration began even before he left home. The 23 boxes of donated equipment he had shipped ahead of his departure, to be in place by the time he arrived, were delayed 10 days in Nairobi.

“My shipper told me it was because they changed from larger to smaller planes,” says Zive, who finally got back to Ardsley on March 4. Fortunately, he had a contact in Kenya who managed to get the equipment to Kigali by the day Zive arrived. But it was six days and more than seven hours later ”going back and forth to government agencies, freight forwarding agencies, and so on” before a local pharmacist who spoke both English and the local language got involved and greased the wheels that finally produced the shipment.

By that time, the heat and insects had put a dent in Zive’s composure. “I don’t mind helping this country- I’m glad to do this, but somebody give me a hand!” he recalls shouting to no one in particular.

A man sitting at the end of the room said, “I will help you.”

That man was, as it turned out, the General Secretary to the Lutheran Church of Rwanda.” He lent me his truck,” Zive says.

“We got the equipment into the house I was staying in, then to the pharmacy, and we did the initial set-up that very night.

The next morning brought more challenges. “The IT specialist overloaded and burned up the first printer. Then someone else burned the second one. Fortunately, the six-year-old, second-hand printer I’d brought on my first trip still worked.”

Zive called the pharmacy on March 6 and learned that everything was up and running.

“I got them everything they needed, trained them, put together standard operating procedures. Our nonprofit purchased and shipped equipment 7,200 miles, extracted it form customs, set it up, and left support mechanisms in place so that if they have problems, they’re not stuck. And in about a week, Kathy Anastos is going back and will take with her the parts needed for the damaged printers.”

Aside from his work with the pharmacy, there were “other events that were kind of emotional,” Zive reports. On Rwanda’s Election Day – Feb. 20- he encountered three orphaned boys on the street, one of them with a badly cut toe. With the WE-ACTx clinic and pharmacy closed for the day and a doctor across the street “too busy” to treat the child, Zive purchased supplies from another pharmacy and cleaned and dressed the wound. “Then I noticed that the three boys had only one flip-flop [sandal] among them, so I bought them all sneakers,” using money his 11-year-old son, Jacob, had asked him to donate in Rwanda.

Zive also located the woman he photographed almost by chance on his first visit and whose startlingly beautiful image now dominates the home page of his Prescription for Hope website. “Her home was the size of an office, with two rooms, no water, no electricity, holes in the roof, a wood-burning stove, smoke in the whole living space. I asked if I could give her anything. She said, “Can you get me some food?” He bought her 200 pounds of beans and 100 pounds of cornmeal – and then, as a second thought, bought a big plastic tub with a tight lid to protect the food from vermin.

On the morning of his last day in Kigali, Zive was received at the American Embassy. On his way from there to the airport, he passed the WE-ACTx pharmacy and was delighted to see patients leaving with medicine bearing the labels his equipment had made possible. He experienced a feeling of satisfaction, thinking that he had “incorporated American technology into their way of doing things while respecting their culture.”

Frustration returned when Zive arrived at the airport and learned that the airline he’d booked his round trip on – SM Brussels – had quarreled with the government of Rwanda and suspended service. “They told me I could wait until they resumed service, or buy a ticket on another airline to fly home! After everything I’d done, I had to worry about getting home, and pay again to do so.

“Imagine a suburban pharmacist doing all this stuff! But when I came home and my children ran out to meet me, that was the best of all.”

Zive is taking some time to rest, get his bearings, catch up at home and work, and then plan for the future.

“When it comes to humanitarian missions, the end result is the rehabilitation of the human being,” Zive sums up philosophically. “Respecting the sovereignty of the nation is part of that. Rwanda is a proud country steeped in majesty and tradition. They wanted my help, but they also wanted to take over themselves. ‘if we need you, we’ll call,’ they said. So that was my job. I’m done there. My nonprofit has been contacted by mother countries and other nonprofits.”

Reproduced with permission of The Rivertowns Enterprise. (c) 2006 W.H. White Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published in The Rivertowns Enterprise on Friday, March 10, 2006