Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Today is Boxing Day here and a holiday and so thought I would share with you how our Christmas went.   Ours was blessed and hope the same for you. On Tuesday the 17 th of December we started our Christmas activities off with a movie that we put on for the whole community in the courtyard of the hospital.   We played “The Nativity” for over 200 people that came.   We played it under the stars and it almost seemed like we were there for the birth! The same day a group from Major’s church in Jinga came to present plates and cups they had bought for the hospital to help with the fire.   Our churches have been so supportive and encouraging to us. Also one of our staff members who is a volunteer Nurse Aide made some stirring spoons for making sadza, and gave them to the hospital. On Friday night they played another movie at the hospital but had to stop half way when the rain came thundering down!   Everyone was happy for the rain so no one complained! ...

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...