Embangweni Hospital is a 130-bed hospital located in northern Malawi, near the border with Zambia. Embangweni, founded in the early 1900s by the Free Church of Scotland, is one of five hospitals operated by our partner church, the Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian (CCAP). It serves a rural population of about 100,000 people.
The hospital expanded from a rural clinic in the 1920s to a small hospital. A maternity ward was added in 1966 and during the next 20 years the facility doubled its number of beds and expanded its services to include pediatrics, male and female general care, surgery and caesarian section deliveries. There are more than 2,000 deliveries each year, more than 50,000 outpatients and more than 4,000 patients admitted annually. The most frequent illnesses are malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, malnutrition and HIV/AIDS. Almost half of all children under the age of 5 are stunted in their growth due to malnutrition.
The scope and size of the Primary Health Care Department has been greatly enlarged and includes malaria, TB, AIDS control programs and a Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit for malnourished children and their mothers. A voluntary counseling and testing project for HIV/AIDS has been expanded, as has the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission project. An extensive outreach program coordinates four remote health centers and mobile clinics in 23 villages. |
