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TRAINING INDIGENOUS
HEALTHCARE WORKERS
>
Indigenous
Healthcare Worker Education Fund Established
> Letter
from the Executive Director
> Trained
Health Workers Save Women's Lives
>
Medical Missions' Hope of Tomorrow & Promise of Today
> Bill
Simmons, Grants Implementation Officer
> Short-Term
Volunteers Train Health Workers
>
Nursing Scholarship Changes Student's Life
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Summer 2008 | Volume 15 |
Issue 2
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Indigenous
Healthcare Worker Education Fund Established
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MBF is pleased to announce that a new fund has been established: the Indigenous Healthcare Worker Education Fund. This
fund was established with a $2 million donation, and the
original donor plans to add another $100,000 to the fund each year.
The intent is for the fund to produce $100,000 annually
for the purpose of providing training of indigenous people
engaged in health ministry.
Already, the fund has provided for the
training of Nepalese interns at Tansen Hospital. It has also
provided for the training of women to raise dairy animals to
increase the nutrition of the people in their community, as part
of the work of Miraj Medical Center in India. Fifty health
workers are now teaching HIV/AIDS prevention and care classes in
South Africa, and three healthcare workers in the Congo are
continuing their educations thanks to the fund. Another fifty
trainers in HIV/AIDS prevention and home based care are working
in Ethiopia.
We look forward to the fund providing for training nurses, lab
techs, pharmacists, x-ray technicians, doctors, administrative
staff, financial staff, community
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Trained Nurses at Miraj Medical
Center, India
health
workers, hospice workers, and people who teach basic health and
nutrition.
We are grateful for all gifts which allow MBF the opportunity to
support the training of indigenous healthcare workers. These
gifts contribute significantly toward improving the health and
well-being of our overseas partners for many years to come.
Education is a gift that lasts a lifetime.
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Letter
from the Executive Director
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Dear MBF family,
Quality health care depends upon highly
motivated, deeply compassionate, and well trained health care
workers. We are very excited that an endowment gift permits us
to aid our church partners in helping their already motivated
and compassionate people receive training enabling them to
provide quality care in Christ's name.
More help is needed and we pray this donor's generosity may lead
others to add their gifts so that even more workers can be
trained or to support other projects of medical mission.
Sincerely,
Will Browne
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Trained
Health Workers Save Women's Lives
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In Africa, where the most common type of cancer in women is
cancer of the cervix, training workers to recognize and treat it
is crucial. Gynecologists are rare. Malawi, a country of 12
million people, has only a dozen gynecologists, and PC(USA)
mission coworker Dr. Sue Makin is the only gynecologist working
outside the largest cities.
Makin is training health workers to test
women for cervical cancer, using a vinegar solution to turn
cancer cells white. If abnormal cells appear, the problem cells
can then be frozen with cryotherapy.
One of the serious health concerns in
developing countries is the high rate of maternal and neonatal
deaths. Nkoma Mission Hospital in Malawi developed a program to
address the problem, including a hand-washing campaign, tools to
quickly recognize patients at risk, and training for clinicians
and nurses in obstetrics and neonatal skills. As a result, Nkoma
Mission Hospital reduced neonatal deaths by 50%.
Another health matter common to African women is obstetric
fistulas, a condition caused by childbirth
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Dr. Sue Makin with health care workers
trained cervical cancer screening at Domasi Mission, Malawi
difficulties that can be so debilitating that some women with
fistulas commit suicide. Dr. Makin has been a pioneer in the
training of health workers to recognize and treat this problem.
Dr. Mike Haninger at Good Shepherd Hospital in DR Congo has also
been training hospital staff to repair obstetric fistulas, and
the hospital has dedicated a complete ward to women with
obstetric fistulas.
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Medical Mission's Hope of Tomorrow and
Promise of Today
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In fourteen different areas of
the world, including Haiti, Bangladesh, Africa, and Nepal,
PC(USA) partner hospitals are training indigenous health workers
to offer quality health care to people of their own country.
Young men and women are studying to be nurses, clinical
officers, midwives, and community health workers. They are the
backbone for building sustainable health programs that reach
people where they live, and for addressing the medical needs
that so often decimate whole communities if ignored.
IN HAITI, where well–trained
nurses are in short supply, the new School of Nursing at Hopital
Ste. Croix will graduate its first class of trained nurses in
2009.
IN BANGLADESH, the Elizabeth
Conan Memorial Nursing Institute graduates fifteen new nurses
each year. The hospital serves more than 5,000 people with a
budget of only $2 per person per year.
IN DR CONGO, Good Shepherd
Hospital/IMCK has built a reputation for excellent training with
a nursing school, a lab technician school, and a residency
program in family medicine
associated with the Medical University of South Africa. Each
year, MBF competes for grants from ASHA (American Schools
and Hospitals Abroad) that
benefit these training programs.
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Students at Nursing Hospital, Ste.
Croix, Haiti
IN NEPAL, the Lalitpur Nursing Campus
(LNC) in Kathmandu has been training young Nepali women as
nurses since the early 1950’s when Nepal had no professional
nurses. LNC is autonomous, including a curriculum that stresses
Christian values, while being academically responsible to
Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Medicine. Lalitpur is
another program that benefits from MBF’s work in securing ASHA
grants.
Your gifts designated toward Indigenous
Healthcare Training support programs like these.
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ASHA Update & Other Needs
Through US(AID) American Schools &
Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) shared funding grants, donors have a
unique opportunity to multiply the giving power of their
gifts. For every dollar you contribute to matching funds on an
ASHA grant, several times that amount will go
toward its cause. In this way, you can leverage the
effectiveness of your gifts!
What Your Help Has Meant
Mulanje Mission Hospital -
Malawi
MBF donors contributed $138,887 which
allowed $733,887 to fund construction and equipment staff
housing, an outpatient building, female ward, and primary health
care facility!
Wanless Hospital - Miraj, India
MBF donors contributed $225,483 which
allowed $900,483 to be used for construction of a new
neurosciences center and equipment!
Nursing School - Leogane, Haiti
MBF donors contributed $100,000 which
allowed for $973,000 to be used for renovation and construction
of a residence facility!
What Your Continued Help Can Do!
Good Shepherd Hospital - DR Congo
$43,000 is needed to leverage a total of
$296,930 for renovation and equipment. This includes freight
costs to deliver $500,000 in medical supplies. Your gift will
be multiplied by almost 7 times, not including the value of
the medical supplies!
Nkhoma Hospital - Malawi
$103,800 is needed to leverage a total of
$603,800 for staff housing, a nursing school, student center,
and upgrade of facilities and equipment.
Your gift will be multiplied by almost 6
times!
Nursing School - Leogane, Haiti
With new facilities in
place thanks to MBF and ASHA, non-ASHA support for the
training of nurses is a continuing need. $3,000 covers the
cost of one student’s tuition, books, and housing for one year.
To learn more or to give, please contact us through the
information provided at the end of this newsletter, or visit us
online at www.MBFoundation.org.
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Short-Term
Volunteers Train Health Workers
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A short-term volunteer nurse anesthetist recently returned from
Malawi where he instructed staff at Embangweni Hospital on how
to use a new anesthesia machine.
In late July, another short-term volunteer,
a professor of nursing, will be training nurses at Ekwendeni
School of Nursing in Malawi.
Chip Lambert, MBF’s Outreach Coordinator,
says that training for health workers in developing countries
can
be done by almost anyone volunteering
for the short-term program. Nurses do in-servicing and skills
transfer to nurses and nursing students; physicians
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provide lectures to the hospital staff
and train doctors in certain surgical procedures. Dentists,
public health officials, and HIV/AIDS clinicians help educate
village leaders about malaria, the importance of clean water,
and HIV prevention. Hospital administrators can help directors
of mission hospitals with better management and accounting
practices.
Consider an MBF short-term volunteer
opportunity at one of the partner hospitals or clinics. Contact
Chip Lambert at
clambert@mbfoundation.org
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Your Gifts Help Train Indigenous Health
Workers at These Facilities
Elizabeth Conan Memorial Nursing Institutes
in Bangladesh
Good Shepherd Hospital in DR Congo
Bethel Synod Clinics in Ethiopia
Hopital Ste. Croix School of Nursing in Haiti
Christian Medical College in India
Miraj Medical Centre in India
Margaret Pritchard College of Nursing in Korea
Tumutumu Hospital in Kenya
Ekwendeni Hospital in Malawi
Embangweni Hospital in Malawi
Mulanje Mission Hospital in Malawi
Nkhoma Hospital in Malawi
Lalitpur Nursing Campus in Nepal
Taxila Hospital in Pakistan
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Nursing School Scholarship Changes
Student's Life
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Training young women to be nurses not only benefits the health
of a country; often, it changes the life of the student.
Shirley Dieuveille, who
will graduate with the class of 2009 from the School of Nursing
in Leogane, Haiti, was raised as the youngest of six children by
a single mother, and could never have attended nursing school
without scholarship assistance. Motivated by the desire for a
medical career and spurred on by hope, she submitted her
application and was rewarded with acceptance and a scholarship.
Four years later, she is an educated and
confident young woman. "Now I see myself as one of the gems of this
country Haiti," she says. "I can give thanks to the FSIL (the
governing board) and its benefactors." She now understands what
a difference a nurse can make in her country, one of the poorest
in the world. Already, she is a student professor, encouraging
first–year students by teaching them medical terminology.
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To counter the problem of students leaving the country to
practice in other areas following graduation, any student
receiving a scholarship must agree to give at least two years of
service to Hopital Ste Croix or another facility in Haiti. Plans
are in motion to raise the years of service to five.
The School of Nursing at Hopital Ste Croix
was built through funds from donors and an MBF–secured ASHA
grant. Financial support comes through MBF for the school’s
operational costs and supplies, and for nursing scholarships and
additional construction grants.
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Bill Simmons, Grants Implementation
Officer
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MBF is pleased to announce the appointment of Bill Simmons as
Grants Implementation Officer. Bill will work with John
Haynes in supporting MBF’s work of securing grants for our
partner churches’ medical mission and will help partner
institutions develop capacity and resolve problems in their
programs utilizing those grants.
Bill comes to us with his wife, Willie, out
of twenty years of mission service for the Presbyterian Church
(USA) followed by eight years of service with the General
Assembly Council (GAC) in various leadership roles for the
Worldwide Ministries Division. Bill
recently retired from service in
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new World Mission unit of the GAC.
Bill and Willie Simmons actually began
their mission service as MBF-related PC(USA) mission personnel,
so we are glad to welcome them "home" to this new call in
service of Christ’s church in medical mission. Bill’s abilities
are legion, and we are sure he will contribute in yet unforeseen
ways to our efforts to serve faithfully in God’s mission.
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Mission Connection is published by the
Medical Benevolence Foundation,
a validated support mission of the
Presbyterian Church (USA).
Contributing Writer: Catherine Davis.
3100 S. Gessner, Ste 210, Houston, TX 77063 |
info@MBFoundation.org | 800-547-7627
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