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Level 8

Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

February is the month of love and what better way to show love to your city by editing the hospitals and pharmacies so that people can find the right and correct information when they need to go to hospital. This is vital information that is not always correct on the Google Maps. I checked the Nairobi County Government website and the Kenya Medical Directory and came up with 220 hospitals and pharmacies.

30 Local Guides signed up for the meetup. I also invited 5 journalists so they could see what is involved in being a Local Guide and what community means to us.

Only 20 Local Guides showed up on Saturday morning. I had a warm breakfast for everyone. I had prepared the labels for everyone introduce to introduce themselves and it was fun....of course "If l was a movie, I would be Black Panther" was booked even before the game started. I then gave a background about the community so that the journalists present would understand. Then everyone was put in a team; we had four teams with five people each and a list of the hospitals and pharmacies (50 per group). The assignment was call the numbers to find out if they belonged to the hospital/pharmacy and then ask for the opening/closing hours where necessary. If the numbers were not correct they would try the numbers provided by the Nairobi county government.

Two hours later the groups had finished the work and we met for a debrief. Everyone was surprised by the incorrect or sometimes obsolete information on the hospitals and pharmacies. Calling the institutions to verify was also challenging as they were very suspicious. We found out that if they thought one was a patient, they were more generous with information. What surprised all of us was that the two national hospitals in the capital city did not have a functioning phone number even on their websites. All in all we edited close to 150 hospitals and pharmacies.  The media came out with great appreciation of the work done by the Local Guides. There was a "feel good" effect of contributing to inadvertently saving a life by this map editing....

What next? First share the information with the Nairobi County government so it can update this information on their website. If they can correct the information then we can have a follow-up map editing event and update this information on Google Maps. Two LGs promised to get the right information from the national hospitals and do the edits.

Dorothy Ooko
Nairobi, Kenya
16 comments
Level 6

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

That was awesome. I couldn't make it for the meetup (I hadn't RSVPed 😉 but I am replicating this in my neighbourhood. As Local Guides, let's get the inaccuracies and inadequacies that are on Maps, I personally handle this by checking the information on Maps when I visit a medical facility.

Level 8

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

I totally agree...replicating this in other cities will go a long way...


@Kigotho wrote:

That was awesome. I couldn't make it for the meetup (I hadn't RSVPed 😉 but I am replicating this in my neighbourhood. As Local Guides, let's get the inaccuracies and inadequacies that are on Maps, I personally handle this by checking the information on Maps when I visit a medical facility.


 

Dorothy Ooko
Level 10

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

@DorothyookoThank you for organizing the first Map Editing meetup, we learnt a lot. @Kigotho You should start a community in Nakuru and replicate that meetup

Former Google Contributor

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

Hi @Dorothyooko

 

Congratulations for the successful meet-up! I admire the idea and the initiative. A lot of people will find your edits helpful and together you have made something that for a single person will be very hard. 

 

Cheers, 

Marin 

Level 6

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

@WaweruM, there is a Nakuru & Kenya Local Guides community in place, I am a member... It's not very active. I prefer first to make a mark, get recognized, so that if I organize a meetup, it will be like "the @Dorothyooko of Nakuru is doing this, we gotta catch it!" Did someone mention a geowalk this March around Lake Nakuru?

Level 10

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

@Kigothowe should do something in Nakuru.


@Kigotho wrote:

@WaweruM, there is a Nakuru & Kenya Local Guides community in place, I am a member... It's not very active. I prefer first to make a mark, get recognized, so that if I organize a meetup, it will be like "the @Dorothyooko of Nakuru is doing this, we gotta catch it!" Did someone mention a geowalk this March around Lake Nakuru?


 

Level 10

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

@Dorothyooko This is really great. Sad to have missed it.

 

Hospitals are one of the key amenities in a society and it’s therefore important to ensure that all data regarding them is correct and up to date. 

Level 8

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

@KigothoI did mention a Geo Walk around lake Nakuru, we'll surely plan and organize the walk to its success. Am hosting a Geo walk around lake Victoria(The lake region Walk) next weekend 10th march, after that we can plan and do one around Lake Nakuru. Cheers!!

Level 8

Re: Nairobi Hospitals and Pharmacies Map Editing

Kudos @Dorothyooko for the first map editing meet-up, it was an awesome initiative though i missed the event.