Hospital, Community Based Medical and Preventative Treatment
HEAL Africa’s hospital in Goma is a center of excellence, with specialist care and a training hospital. Young medical professionals can work with seasoned physicians, learn and pursue research while gaining practical experience which will help them as they become the future of health care in Congo. Community-based programs to prevent health problems like fistula or malnutrition are linked to the hospital and to the doctors practicing there in a unique blend of practical knowledge of the culture and practices and access to first-world experience which will affect the health futures of the Congolese people.
HEAL Africa’s hospital provides the best medical infrastructure available in Northeast Congo, although it is overcrowded and serves more people than it was intended to. However, it is the base from which the HEAL Africa programs spread into the community. The positive reputation of the hospital (it is known as a center of excellence by the community) opens access and receptivity for community-based healing. Virtually all of the community-based health work originated from research on causal factors of ill-health.
- HEAL Africa’s team of experienced and specialized surgeons have performed nearly 2,000 fistula surgeries.
- The hospital has six specialists to treat patients with skill and success.
- HEAL Africa conducted 662 outreach surgeries in 2008 in North Kivu and Maniema provinces in local general hospitals, linked at the same time with in-service training of local staff, referring only the most complicated cases to Goma.
- HEAL Africa is situated within the government medical system by the Medical Inspection of North Kivu as the tertiary referral hospital of the province.
- HEAL is a recognized clinical training centre of the Medical Faculty of the University of Goma, offering the first two years of accredited clinical specialization in Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Family Medicine, Surgery and Orthopedics.
A new hospital is being planned, which will increase efficiency and quality of care. The second floor of the proposed hospital will be entirely devoted to women’s fistula services and the whole hospital is devoted to teaching and preparing Congolese doctors to give excellent service in the most underserved areas of Congo.
The hospital in Goma is the first contact most people have with HEAL Africa’s programs, and the most visible part of its work. It and the Jubilee Center (our organizational headquarters) form the infrastructure and the “home base” of our many organizational efforts. A list of medical personnel illustrates the main share of work carried out on hospital grounds by our 109 staff members (a number which must grow to adequately staff a level 3 hospital).
HEAL Africa’s central hospital facilities serve as the location for and capacity of our in-patient care. If one calculates the capacity of the hospital by the number of beds it owns, we currently have space for 155 patients. The table below reflects how the hospital is used, according to what spaces have been reserved for patients with different medical needs.
Allocation of Hospital Beds:
Ob-Gyn 20 beds
Pediatrics 12 beds
Surgery and Orthopedics 72 beds
Internal Medicine 5 beds
Other 46 beds
The reality remains that medical demands are greater than supplies: the overall bed occupancy for 2008 was 114%. In 2008 HEAL Africa provided inpatient care for 3079 people. HEAL Africa’s capacity for positive impact on holistic health expands with each addition of a new facility. The total number of patients treated in HEAL Africa’s medical facility this year numbers 14,279.
Among the many medical services provided, surgery forms the largest part. HEAL Africa staff performed 1750 surgeries in 2008. As in years past, our main areas for surgery are orthopedics (526) and gynecology, with vesico-vaginal fistula repairs being the single largest surgical pathology, followed by club feet correction and war trauma (742).
HEAL Africa’s medical programs extend out of the hospital as well into community based prevention and medicine. With a population on the move (1.1 million internally displaced people in North Kivu in 2009), prevention of disease is difficult. But HEAL Africa’s programs have continued to teach prevention and reach deep into communities:
- PEP and PMTCT training for 67 local clinics, training and equipment for rural clinics, and provision of the drugs
- Safe Motherhood and micro health insurance
- Anti-malaria and tuberculosis
- Improving nutrition, especially of the vulnerable population (see Mawe Hai)
- increased access to income and education for women heads of household or foster families of HIV orphans
- Palliative home care for patients with AIDS
- HIV Harm reduction. A series of awareness training, youth clubs, support groups for foster mothers of HIV orphans, parents and siblings, income generation for child-headed households and foster parents in more than 18 different programs work with all faith groups to prevent HIV and help those with it live with dignity
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HEAL Africa General Fund: Used where most needed. This is the most effective use of your funds because it enables HEAL Africa to use your money two or three times, filling funding gaps and paying for patients’ care.
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