St Alberts Mission Hospital in northern Zimbabwe serves an impoverished rural population of 120,000 people scattered across 3000 sq km. Subsistence farming is the main activity in the region. The hospital operates on very limited funds. Two women doctors, one male doctor, and a dedicated nursing staff run the 140-bed hospital and all the ancillary programs. See stalbertsmissionhospital.org
When I visited the hospital in November 2013 Dr Julia Musariri remarked that the hospital faced a chronic shortage of supply of sutures. About 2,600 babies are delivered here every year, and obstructed labour and consequent vaginal fistulas are a serious problem – the demand for appropriate surgical supplies is constant.
When I visited again in Nov 2014, Dr Julia said the situation hadn’t changed, so on my return to Sydney we researched a way of purchasing a year’s supply of sutures that could be delivered to Zimbabwe without incurring import duties. The consignment was delivered in 2015.
In 2015 we also made a donation of $10,000 to fund a consignment of medications, sourced in India, that was finally delivered in 2016.
Together with the generosity of friends, the Legacy was able to supply new hospital-grade linen, pay power bills, subsidise the purchase of a utility vehicle for the use of the hospital outreach workers, fund the repair of the hospital generator, and partially fund the purchase of an autoclave to replace the old non-functioning one.
Through the two and a half years of the COVID pandemic, we funded the purchase of masks and gloves.
The Legacy also assisted in the treatment of a few individual patients, notably a young girl with a rapidly-growing facial tumour who had to have surgery in Harare, and a badly burnt boy who was referred to, and supported at, Jairos Jiri School for the disabled in Harare.
Over many years we have been greatly helped by having the support of the remarkable Monsignor Tony Doherty, a priest in the Rose Bay parish of Sydney, who has been able to source funding for initiatives at the hospital when the Legacy was unable to meet the need. The water purification system that serviced the hospital was broken, the floor of the operating theatre needed tiling, and a tractor was needed to service the large vegetable garden that the hospital relied on in an area of high cases of the effects of malnutrition.
There was also an urgent need for a multi-roomed ‘safe house’ to accommodate pregnant teenagers who were ‘bush boarding’, living on the edge of the village and begging for food. Many were orphans, all were victims of sexual abuse. Monsignor Tony Doherty found funds enough to cover all these needs.
2023. The hospital’s needs continue to be a challenge. Funds are now low, and more and more I’m having to rely on friends and well-wishers to fill the funding gaps. Mid-year we were able to supply the hospital with 1000 ‘layers’, (chicks that would grow to be egg producing) and undertook to assist with paying for their feed. Eggs are an important source of protein for the hospital patients and local community, with malnutrition a major problem in the area. Unfortunately fears that there will be a drought through 2024 are growing. We will do what we can.
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