Kabudula Community Hospital
World Altering Medicine has recently forged a partnership with Kabudula Community Hospital, a government owned facility offering free public health services to Kabudula, a farming region outside of Lilongwe, Malawi. Kabudula Community Hospital serves a population of 350,000, most of whom are poor subsistence farmers and their families. While only 60 km away from the capital city, the hospital feels worlds apart, as it is reachable only by a dirt road which is barely passable in the rainy season.
Kabudula is a full-spectrum community hospital with nearly 100 patient beds. The hospital treats 200 outpatients daily and is the referral hospital for nine other satellite facilities. 1,000 babies are delivered there each month, yet the hospital has only 32 pediatric beds, eight post-natal beds, and three beds in the maternity ward. All of this is done without a physician, as there is no full time doctor on Kabudula’s staff. Currently, there is one clinical officer and 10 nurses, all of whom work tirelessly and heroically with few resources and for little pay.
The needs and challenges at Kabudula are tremendous. There is no full time doctor and no antenatal ward. There are severe shortages of staff as well as of essential drugs, equipment and supplies. Twenty-five per cent of the district’s stock of essential medications has gone unfulfilled for months. Due to inadequate space for laboring mothers, there are routinely 20 or more term pregnant women sleeping on a concrete slab outdoors, with no mosquito nets, while they wait to go into labor. Basic medical equipment is scarce, with few oxygen concentrators and no ultrasound machine. There are bats in the roof above the pediatric ward.
WAM is uniquely positioned to work with Kabudula and profoundly impact the hospital and the surrounding community it serves. In conjunction with the Malawian Health Ministry, several priorities have been identified:
- Staffing
- equipment
- oxygen
- facilities improvement
- medication stock outs
- training
It is nearly impossible to imagine the conditions faced by Kabudula’s patients on a daily basis. With your help, World Altering Medicine can dramatically transform lives in Kabudula, in Malawi and around the world.
