Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Easter was a busy weekend here for us.  On Friday, the start of Easter 4 day holiday here, and our 34th Independence Day, we had a container arrive from the US.  It is always quite a job to unload it from the truck to our ground without a crane.  It involves our tractor pulling with chains and piece of old pipe to keep it rolling and a pit the truck backs up into to be level with the ground!  It is too scary for me to watch most of the time! Saturday the Natomos team of Linda, Mercy, Elsa and Brandon helped to teach the kids during our church conference.  They did lessons, crafts, soccer and drama with them.  They all had a great time. Sunday morning we had Easter sunrise service that started at 6 a.m. and went until 9 a.m.  Then we came home to cook Easter dinner and 13 people came to eat.  The Easter bunny even found us out in the bush and delivered some chocolate eggs. We left after lunch for Harare with our team who was leaving the ne...

We had a visit on March 29th from Jeff Dunbar from Santa Rosa.  Unfortunately his bags did not arrive with him and he was to explain the new medical record system we are doing with Rotary in Sebastopol.  When he got back to Harare to leave 3 days later the 2 Ipads he brought had been stolen with the information on it.  We enjoyed having him for just a short time in the hospital and showing him life in a Zimbabwean hospital--as we say it is just like an American hospital, but different!  He helps to run the Internet Continuing Education program we are involved with through Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol, CA, every Wednesday. Dr. Nura Isala our new doctor we hired, arrived on Friday the 12th to begin work with us.  Already he had done 2 C/Sections and been on call all this week.  It is great to have him.  Nura was with us for 7 months  5 years ago.  We are happy to have 2 doctors again as it has been very busy. Well this past week we we...

We were very shocked on Thursday the 27th of March when we went to Harare and Dr. Kellert thought she was going to get her work permit renewed and she was given 72 hours to leave the country.  The director of immigration would not tell her why and so she booked a ticket and left for South Africa on the 29th of March and then on to the US on the 4th of April--her birthday! We all feel very sorry for her and pray that God will allow this decision to be overturned.  So many people were shocked and it was all hard for us to decide what to do as were all in a state of shock.  Pray for her and also for her decision to decide whether she will appeal this decision.  She is taking time in the US to decide what to do next. New visitors arrived when Jo and Dr. Derik Taninguchi arrived with their friend Pat Jacobs on Friday the 21st of March.  Pat and Jo are nurses and we put them to work.  Derik saw some GI patients for us and taking lots of video and pictures. ...

Wow, one travel over our road from Karoi and you will see why we are dreaming of a helicopter.  This is the worse it has been in 34 years I have been here.  No one has worked on it for 4 years and now with an abundance of rain this year, it is a mess.  It used to take us 1 hr and 15 minutes to Karoi our nearest town.  Now it is 2- 2 1/2 hours!  We have 2 ways to go and we can’t decide if one is better than the other.  We always say it is shorter to the tar one way so at least the agony of the first isn’t so long, so we usually choose that way! With the rain there have been big gullies and hole that have washed away in the road--it is always a challenge.  Most of us refuse to go to town unless absolutely necessary.  It is so painful!  Major goes 2 times a week sometime!  Glad he is younger and can drink a lot of coffee/coke to keep going! We were happy to welcome our UK Trust board members, Gillian and Mike Withers from Crowthorne, ...

Those of you who know us at Chidamoyo or have been here to visit with us know how “cool” we are are, but this week we got even “cooler!”  We had a new air conditioning unit put into our labortory to keep the machines cool and running.  Without the air conditioning they were shutting down because they were overheating.  So with the new air conditioner we can keep going even in our hot season. We also put an additional air condition in our operating room and it is very cool now for our doctors operating.  This week I got to enjoy it on Friday when I had several cases to do.  I think we will be fighting to work in theater and the Lab in October during our hot days! We are thankful for our supporters who helped us make a big change  in both departments that will help our patient care be better.  Thank you! Our only doctor left last Saturday to attend a family wedding in South Africa, so it has been me trying to run everything and do my job an...

New and exciting developments are happening at the hospital.  This past week we finally got installed our Full Blood Count machine and Electrolyte machine that was donated by the Rotary Club of Sebastopol, CA.  We hope to arrange the official turnover ceremony with the Harare Rotary club this week. Let me tell you some exciting things that happened with these machines.  We ordered and paid for the machines in early September.  They promised to delivery them in 1 month.  We waited 1 month and called, yes they are coming.  Then we kept calling every week and we would get some excuse and a promise they were on the way. In December when we got worried they were taking us and our $25,000 for a ride we called and said they better be delivered in 2 weeks or we wanted all our money back with interest! Within a week our machines were delivered. Then we had to call them several times about coming to set up the machines for us and teach our Lab guy how to d...