On a tour of Kabudula Community Hospital
Written by GHF, Angela
A lively community hospital serving a large rural population, Kabudula is the hub for health services in this area. While the hospital does not charge fees, patients often struggle to pay for transportation to reach there, and family members face challenges regarding lodging and food.
In partnership with World Altering Medicine, we help stock the hospital’s pharmacy with medication when the system experiences shortages, so that patients receive the care they need no matter what.
The cold-storage pharmacy
According to a community member interview, the hospital is mostly adequate in the basic services it provides, and most of the departments are equipped and staffed, with just a few areas for improvement. X-ray equipment is available, but there is no radiographer on staff.
The operating theatre
Surgical equipment is also available, and it is utilized for C-section deliveries, but not for other surgical procedures. Cervical cancer screening is promoted, but treatment is not available on location. We are conducting a needs assessment of the hospital to better inform future programming and how partners can bring resources together to address these gaps. Improving healthcare at the level of the community hospital is very important in this area because patients who are referred elsewhere may never get helped due to over-crowding at the final referral hospitals or transportation challenges in getting there.
A patient being treated in the current trauma room
We are currently in the planning process for building a new emergency department at Kabudula hospital, in partnership with World Altering Medicine. The current “trauma room” is too small to even fit a bed or stretcher inside!
Newly built Mangochi trauma room
The need for emergency services has increased with the improvement of the tarmac road through Kabudula, bringing more vehicle accidents. We have chosen a spacious building site just inside the gate of the hospital campus, and we are modeling the design from a recent addition to the Mangochi hospital for the same purpose.
Staff and patients alike look forward to Access Health Africa’s annual “surgical camps” at Kabudula, where visiting surgeons come and perform minor surgeries on needy patients while training the local clinicians on these procedures. We hope to continue improving the partnership with Kabudula hospital through ongoing programming with the assistance of Global Health Fellows on the ground year-round. Please continue to support these promising initiatives!