In The News
WMMC Reaches Out to Hospital in Africa
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| Some patients arrive by an oxen-driver "ambulance" to Mwami Adventist Hospital in Zambia. A team from WMMC traveled to the hospital in July. |
In May, members of our executive team met with Richard Hart, MD, founder of Adventist Health International and president of Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center. Adventist Health International is a management company that links Adventist hospitals in the U.S. with hospitals in
developing countries that suffer from broken equipment, insufficient staff, deteriorating buildings and limited management techniques. Those hospitals cannot provide adequate healthcare to the impoverished people who depend on it.
On July 22, representatives from White Memorial traveled to Mwami Adventist Hospital in Zambia for a week, to assess the African hospital’s needs and determine how WMMC might provide support.
“Their needs are more than any one hospital can assist with,” said Brian Johnston, MD, who was part of the WMMC delegation, which also included Chief Financial Officer John Raffoul and Administrative Resident Peter Baker. “But there are some basic things that can be done, and I’m positive about the potential.”
Mwami Adventist Hospital is almost 19 miles from the nearest town, Chipata. It took the WMMC team 24 hours to travel there. The roads are not paved. Patients arrive on foot or in a cart pulled by oxen. A few fortunate people own bicycles. The people survive on what they can farm, and if the rains fail, they starve. The leading causes of death are preventable diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.
“They lack basic equipment like decent beds and clean mattresses,” Peter said. “The hospital is funded mostly by the government, but it can’t treat enough patients to bring in the money it needs. The hospital will train nurses and then the nurses – and also the doctors – leave, because they can get paid five or six times as much in another country.”
Competing hospitals in Zambia bring in rotations of medical residents from other countries, some of whom stay to serve as doctors after their training. But because of the poor conditions, doctors don’t stay at Mwami. With 200 beds and a patient census of about half that, Mwami Adventist Hospital currently has only two physicians. Additionally, the hospital lacks adequate accounting and budgeting processes.
The next step is for WMMC to present a report on its findings to Adventist Health International, and assess what role WMMC can play.
“This could be a very fruitful relationship for the White,” said Dr. Johnston. “I think it’s going to be a lot of work, but I also think there could be significant rewards.”
Posted 9/9/08
