May 1, 2004
Embangweni #19.5
Dear Friends and Family,
We have just written “Embangweni #19.” However, as
we embark on our joyous trip to Congo for the 50th anniversary
of the IMCK, our happiness is muted by perhaps the biggest disappointment
we have had since coming to Malawi 14 months ago. We have written
in previous emails about the ups and downs in our application
process for funding from Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) for a new
Preventive Health Care Center that is to bring together the various
clinics, the HIV counseling and testing, youth outreach, lab services
and immunizations into one integrated services facility.
After many trips back and forth to Lilongwe, long effort working
with an architect to come up with a good design, and hopeful assurances
right up until the last few days, we have suddenly been told that
Embangweni has been denied funding. Apparently NCA came up short
on funds and had to choose only two of the three hospitals that
had applied. The decision was apparently made on the basis of
patient volume and, being the smallest of the three, we lost.
This door is now finally closed.
The irony is that Embangweni was the one most in need of a new
facility. Both of the other hospitals are already operating out
of existing buildings—older ones, to be sure, but in place.
Embangweni, on the other hand, has literally no place for conducting
confidential interviews with HIV patients. We have to borrow offices
or rooms from other hospital activities at odd times when their
occupants are out. Forget about privacy! Our clinics are conducted
in one large open room where all the patients sit around in a
big circle and kibitz the responses of each one in turn to the
nurse’s questions about extremely personal and sensitive
health matters. Patients who are sent off for lab work at the
small, overcrowded lab frequently never return to the clinic for
the rest of their visit because it is away in a separate building.
There is no place for young people to come and be counseled in
a separate setting on health issues. Immunizations are given far
from where the same people must come for other clinic services.
Records are scattered through at least three buildings.
Without a new facility of some sort, the new AIDS treatment program
at Embangweni Hospital will come to a halt. Funds donated so far
for the antiretroviral (ARV) drugs will be used to continue a
few of the patients already started, but with no interview, examining,
testing, and counseling rooms, we will be unable to expand the
number of patients that can be seen. As a result, we will never
qualify for the much anticipated program of free ARVs to be funded
from the Global AIDS Fund that the U.S. government is contributing
to because they have already given, as one of their criteria,
the requirement that the hospital must be able to accept a minimum
of 25 new AIDS patients per quarter.
We are sorry to be unburdening ourselves on you in this way.
We know that all the individuals and churches on our distribution
list are already committed to ongoing projects in Malawi and that
you are already stretched to the limits in budgets that seem to
get tighter and tighter each year. But you are all we have to
reach out to and so we are hoping that you may know people outside
our circle of contacts who might be looking for promising projects
to support or churches that are not currently fully engaged in
missions and would be open to renewing and revitalizing their
mission programs through a project such as this.
What, you may ask, is the magnitude of the project? This is a
building 30 yards square with a large open central courtyard (10
yards square) surrounded by rooms and corridors on all four sides.
It includes a 1,000+ square foot laboratory with separate waiting
room, bleeding room, storage and office space. It includes a 1,000+
square foot youth facility with a lounge area which we hope will
attract young people with reading and recreational activities
(anyone want to contribute a couple of pinball machines?!) and
will provide two or three examining and counseling rooms where
they can get answers to their questions and concerns about HIV
infection. It includes two interview rooms and four exam rooms.
each for PMTCT and the ante-natal and family planning clinics,
lots of storage and records room space, and a large waiting area
where educational materials and videos will be freely available—a
total of about 2,000 square feet. It will include four or five
interview/examining rooms for HIV/AIDS along one secluded hallway,
along with offices for the AIDS program coordinator, a nurse case
manager, a doctor’s office, a library and a large conference/training
room—about 1,000 square feet. Space for immunizations, TB
counseling, social clinic, and modern toilet facilities will round
out the building.
And what staggering sum will all of this cost? Here in Malawi,
where labor is cheap and villagers are eager to make a little
money by molding and kiln-firing bricks from local clay, we have
an estimate of about $90,000. We already have $17,000 in hand
from a donation targeted specifically for the lab. That leaves
$73,000 to go. Yes, it is a lot, but we could start with 73 loaves
and fishes!
Love to All!
Bill and Beth
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
58 |
