AHA’s partnership with Nkhoma Mission Hospital began with our partnership with World Altering Medicine (WAM), at the time when WAM was also partnering with Watsi, a program funding surgical sponsorships at the time. In 2014, the partnership funded transportation for patients from rural areas to attend an AHA international surgical camp at Kabudula. Then, in 2018, AHA and WAM collaborated on the development of a new Global Health Fellowship. Duties of the fellowship included coordinating the Watsi program at Nkhoma. Although the Watsi program has since been phased out at Nkhoma, AHA’s introduction to Nkhoma gave us firsthand experience with the high quality of healthcare services offered, along with the barriers patients face in accessing them. This led AHA to partner with Nkhoma for referrals and the development of our own sponsorship program.
Surgery at Nkhoma is a great option for patients who cannot be treated at Kabudula or other facilities due to the complexity of their conditions and resource challenges within the public system. However, with the phasing out of the Watsi program and Nkhoma’s heavily subsidized but not always free care, AHA has covered the costs of surgery in addition to transportation and other direct support required by patients receiving care at Nkhoma. This required extensive fundraising through our own sponsorship program, which remained limited to only a few patients at a time due to the higher amounts needed to be raised for each.
Nkhoma recently introduced a new program for surgical sponsorship at the facility called SAFE, Surgical Access For Everyone. This program is supported by an organization called African Mission Healthcare (AMH). The SAFE program supports surgery at 12 different mission hospitals in five African countries. SAFE covers the full cost of surgical procedures to the facility, which means it not only helps patients with the subsidized fees they would normally be charged, but also supports the hospital by covering the even higher costs incurred by the facility. SAFE does not, however, cover related costs such as transportation, lodging, and food.
AHA’s partnership with SAFE developed out of plans for Nkhoma Hospital to become a PAACS (Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons) training site. This is a COSECSA (Council of Surgeons of East, Central, and Southern Africa) certified surgical residency training program. Graduates receive a diploma from Loma Linda University and then after passing their exams, a COSECSA certification. The program is designed to train African surgeons, in Africa, for Africa. In order to meet the requirements of the training program, Nkhoma had to greatly increase the number of surgeries being done at the facility. One way of doing this was to remove the cost barrier for patients, which is partially addressed through the SAFE program.
Another aspect is the current construction of a new surgical and maternity center, to include adult and neonatal ICUs and space for PAACS education. Thirdly, there was a need for additional surgeons at the hospital, faculty for the program, and further training for ICU nurses and anesthetists, which is currently underway. The first two residents to enter the residency program are doing so this year (2022).
Since the SAFE program only covers the costs of the actual procedure, patients still depend on AHA’s sponsorship program to access care, especially for the cost of diagnostics leading up to the procedure, in addition to coordination, transportation, and food during the hospital stay. Things like lab tests, x-rays, ultrasound scans, and consultations prior to admission are required before a patient can even be considered eligible for surgery and thus apply to the SAFE program. These tests are expensive and unaffordable for most of AHA’s patients, most of whom struggle with the cost of transportation to reach the facility let alone diagnostic tests.
AHA continues to meet patients where they are when it comes to accessing quality healthcare, which begins with coordination by our staff on the ground. Many patients do not even know where to begin seeking help for their condition, or even that the condition is treatable. By sponsoring patients for surgery at Nkhoma, our supporters are not only helping us reach out to the most vulnerable patients who would otherwise lack access to care, but you are also helping support a recognized surgical residency training program to train new Malawian surgeons in Malawi, for Malawi! In this way, sponsorship for patients at Nkhoma provides an immediate solution for those waiting for surgery, while contributing to a lasting impact for the growth of of surgical care in Malawi.
We are currently sponsoring nine patients for care as part of the SAFE program.
Meet the patients receiving care thanks to this partnership:
