Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Things are getting better each day since the fire on November 21 st . So many good things have come from the fire and the support and love from the community locally, from Karoi, Chinhoyi and throughout the country, the government and internationally have been overwhelming to us.   We are humbled and thankful. We had the electricians arrive on Saturday last week and put most of the hospital back on line.   Some of the wards and our AIDS Education wing need totally new wiring, so they are not yet back on line, but the rest of the hospital is.   They also put us back on line with the solar so we are back to 24/7 power at the hospital.   We are thankful to Gerald Khosa, our solar installer, who sent his electrician out and people from Chinhoyi ZESA to do this.   By Saturday afternoon we had power going to all the hospital where it was possible.    Tuesday we moved all the fridges and freezers back to the hospital that we have been keeping in our ho...

Today the Minister of Health, Dr. Pariranyetwa and Dr. Chombo the Minister of Local Government and     National Housing and Public Works arrived by helicopter with our Minister of Parliament, Dr. Gandawa and several top government officials from the Ministry of Health.   They discussed with us what happened and pledged their total support to rebuild the buildings destroyed and have people here quickly to assess if the buildings can be saved at all or new buildings have to built and how.   They promised that something would get started and accomplished this year, not waiting until 2014! How exciting is that? We gave officials a tour of the fire damaged buildings as well as a tour of the hospital.   We only had 5 patients admitted and 3 in Maternity and one in Labor.   We had a busier outpatient today and Antenatal Clinic as well as our ART and TB patients for refills, so it was quite busy today.   Slowly we are building up patients. The top ...

At 0230 on the morning of 21-November-2013 the guards at the hospital saw flames coming out of the locked kitchen at Chidamoyo Christian Hospital.   Immediately the Administrator and all people on the mission were alerted and came to the hospital to help. 15 fire extinguishers were used to try and stop the spread of the fire but it quickly spread to the laundry on one side and the drug storeroom on the other side.   While Major was using the fire extinguishers on the kitchen door part of the ceiling fell in and hit him on the side of the face and spun him around.   In the smoke he was disoriented and flames were on 2 sides of him.   The driver of the construction company came up and pulled him out!   He went on to continue fighting the fire for 4 more hours! The community as well as the Construction crew from Harare working on upgrading our Waiting Mother shelters jumped into action and came with buckets of water, ladders, picks, shovels and axes to try...

Lots of projects are coming together this week and we are happy to see some completion! First we have been busy laying down pipes from the new borehole to the water tanks up on our hill.   Working in this summer heat has been a big job for the men digging and laying the pipe—seems it is all in the sun and not in the shade.   We have also bought a new pump we will use and also have finished the pump house around the new borehole.   We are hoping this project will be done in the next month. Then we have are happy that on Wednesday, Major went to Harare to pick up the rest of the solar equipment and brought back 2 technicians from Chinhoyi who began work on Thursday installing the 18 solar panels and wiring to make us totally solar 24/7!   No more unreliable ZESA!   We are so excited!   The technicians have been working up on our “hot tin roof” for the last few days in 110+ degree heat—right in the sun.   They are being baked!   Using so...

Last week on Saturday a 20 foot container sent from Sebastopol Christian Church arrived here at Chidamoyo! It had been sent in June and so we were very anxious for its arrival. On Thursday we started to unload it.  We unload it bit by bit as we have time and bring the boxes and barrels to the hospital and put in the hallway outside my office.  Then as I have time we unload and sort through the boxes. We  have only been able to unpack a few things but we received new printers for the office, gauze and gloves which we were desperately in need off and some foley catheters.  We will continue to work on it as we have time! We are so thankful so many nurses, doctors and other people who save these for us.  Without these supplies we would not be able to afford them here.  Thank you for all who save for us. Also a big thank you to Gene and Sue Beckstead who drive all over Sonoma County picking up the supplies and have their garage always full of supplies f...

This past week we had 2 days of  rain--17 mls and 5 mls-- so we hope this is the start of our rainy season.  Of course as soon as the wind picked up, our electricity which had been out for 10 days and came back for 5 days--died again!  It has been 4 days without and we figure they will get it fixed in time for the next storm to knock it out!  Such is life here! We have really had a hot October.  Most days are up to 110+ and only down to low 80's at night, so without a fan when we have no electricity it is hard to sleep well.  I spent one night on the cement floor because it was cooler. Last week we had visitors arrive on Thursday from Bulawayo to hold a meeting for 20 local teachers.  They were from Family Impact, a Christian group that teaches teachers how to promote the family and good self image in their teaching.  They did many games and exercises with the teachers to teach them new ways to use in their classrooms.  It was very fun a...

On October 12 th our visitors, Sharon, Shanena, Wendy and Jill, nurses from Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in California arrived in Harare.   Dr. Kellert and I used to work at this hospital and so we were happy to welcome our friends.   Dr. Kellert went in to meet them and they spent the night at the flat in Harare and arrived here on Sunday afternoon in time for dinner.   Of course our electricity went out on the Saturday night they arrived and we never saw it again until the 22 nd of October (10 days later!). All of the nurses are Maternity and ICN nurses in my home town and we have been planning for them to come and visit for a long time.   We put them to work in delivering babies, counting pills, getting pills ready for our ART clinic, helping with immunizations and Antenatal Clinics.   They are having a great time and were very tolerable without electricity and in our heat of summer.   All week it was 110+ degrees! They also brought suitc...

Wow this has been a busy last half of September!   On September 15 th I left Chidamoyo at 6 a.m. to get to Harare in time to visit Marcia Kay Thomson, one of our missionaries from Masvingo who had been in the hospital for cancer surgery and had some complications.   I went to see what was going on with her and was able to get her up and walking when I visited.   Spent the next 2 days visiting her twice a day to get her up and going.   While there, friend Zebedee Togarepi came for some minor surgery and ended up 2 days in another hospital in Harare—so I ran between hospitals to visit both of them.   Both were doing much better when I had to leave Harare. On Monday evening I met up with Dr. Ivirn Zimudzi, our doctor here from 2008-2011.   He is now a doctor in Namibia and was home visiting family for a few days.   It was great to see him and hear about his work. On Tuesday the 17 th , Gladys Jongling and I left for Bulawayo and spent the night ...

On September 7th Chidamoyo Christian Hospital had their big fundraiser hosted by Larry and Cheri Gail in Seattle, Washington.  This was the 2nd time for this event.  Last time they raised more than $60,000 to buy our new Jeep. This year they set the goal as $75,000.  As of last week more than $105,000 had been raised and more  was still coming in--WOW! We hope to complete several projects at the hospital including solar power for all the hospital, painting and repairs and repairs for a vehicle that has been down for 5 months.  Our heads are still spinning from the generosity of so many people!  Did Major put magic in the sadza he cooked?  We are so excited and thank all of our wonderful supporters. Major will be back in 1 week!  I have been waiting 10 weeks to say that!  He is exhausted and about 40 pounds heavier!  Thank you to all who helped him with transport, hosted him in your house and fed him all those extra pounds!  We ...

We have been involved through the Rotary Club in Sebastopol, CA and through the Tele Med Center at Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol, CA in a Tele Med program.  Every Wednesday at 5 p.m. we tune in via Ipad to a Continuing Education Conference put on by Dr. Gude in Sebastopol.  There are interesting case studies and we can learn a lot from these. On Wednesday, August 21st we were able to present a clinical case here and discuss with experts there about the case and what we should do.  Dr. Kajese, Dr. Kabanzi and I sat around an Ipad and talked back and forth for 1 hour with the group in Sebastopol,CA and we could see each other.  How excited we are to be part of this project and it will benefit us in our practice to be able to talk about difficult cases.  Who could ever imagine that we could sit in the bush in Zimbabwe and talk to other doctors in CA about our patients? Last week we received 2 new machines in our theater from a generous donation through ...