Better Healthcare for Africa, Inc. (BHA) is a 501(c)3 public charity and a secular, non-political organization that assists St. Albert’s Mission Hospital, located in a rural northern Zimbabwe not far from Mt. Darwin in the province of Mashonaland Central.
We are guided by the principle that it is better to help an outstanding rural hospital remain in operation than it is to re-establish a hospital that has collapsed. Our overall goals are the following: Read more »
Dear Friends,
As the year comes to a close we are excited to share the accomplishments of Better Healthcare for Africa with you. BHA had a very successful year in 2011, and we hope you will consider making a tax-deductible donation to enable us to continue our efforts. We often worked in partnership with other nonprofits in ways that were mutually beneficial and that enabled us to stretch our precious dollars. We look forward to continuing those relationships. Here is a brief recap of BHA’s main activities in 2011:
In 2012, we will work to improve cancer care at St Albert’s and other hospitals in Zimbabwe. Our focus will be cervical- and breast-cancer early detection, treatment and education. Donations to help support this effort are needed.
BHA is an all-volunteer organization with minimal expenses, so 98-99% of donations go toward improving healthcare and reducing suffering in southern Africa. Please make a donation using PayPal on our website or by mailing a check, payable to Better Healthcare for Africa, to our postal address:
Thank you, and all of us at Better Healthcare for Africa hope you have a New Year of peace, contentment and good health.
Sincerely…Darrell
Darrell E. Ward
President
Better Healthcare for Africa
Dr Elizabeth Tarira sent the following message earlier this week from Rome, where she has been for a number of weeks.
Dear Friends,
Here is a bit of news from your St Albert’s Mission Hospital. Please, do not get frightened of my English. These days I tend to think, dream and write in Italian since it’s the language I am currently using.
The life at St Albert’s goes on as usual, but with a lot of challenges. The government is unable to assist us at all, but our friends the Chinese are carrying away the little that the country has towards the East. We are able to go ahead with our work of healing because there are angels like you who continue to help us. Thank you so much!
We received four containers full of all goodies (medical supplies, equipment both medical and building, exercise books, clothes for the poor, food etc). Three were from Rock No War and Luisa Guidotti Missionary Group and one from America—Brother’s Brother Fountation, Better Healthcare for Africa and Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach.
The Waiting Mothers Home under construction is 80 percent complete funded by Radio Deejay and CESVI. At least the poor mothers can be welcome in a dignified home and be worthy to be called precious mothers. It is a huge complex with 12 more rooms. Medicines for the sick regularly arrive from Luisa Guidotti Missionary Group, the only entity that is assisting us with some running costs of the Hospital.
The orphans are still going to school, thanks to the tireless parents at long distance that are sacrificing for these children who are the future of our country. We used to cry tears of blood for the lack of water for the Hospital and the community around the Mission, now the water purifying plant has been completed. Hats off to our Ferrara friends who have committed themselves to maintain the running of the plant. The School of Nursing is ongoing. We do not forget many other friends who in times of crisis chip in with their support.
Your close friends of the International Medical Association on the frontline in Italy, India and Zimbabwe continue to work hard carrying out the mission activities also on your behalf. Without your support it would be impossible for us to carry out meaningful service to the needy. One of our workforce on the frontline, is not too well, she is fighting the cancer that has invaded the bones, and is currently being treated in Italy. Continue praying hard so that Elizabeth can be restored back to health so that can continue the battle in the field against disease, suffering and pain of others.
The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference Health Commission has embarked on a three year program of helping other Mission Hospitals that are in need. Five ambulances have been purchased and other 5 are in the pipe line, drugs and various medical supplies were purchased. Trainings of the Hospital managers were done.
We thank God who takes care of all, at St Albert’s there are three doctors working full time.
What shall we do with the crisis all over the world that is striking more and more on the generous group of people who have been helping the other poor in under developed countries? We better leave these worries in the hands of God!
We greet you with affection and love.
St Albert’s Hospital Staff [Elizabeth and Co.]
Better Healthcare for Africa (BHA) has purchased a large autoclavethat has been desperately needed by Muvonde Hospital (also called Driefontein Mission Hospital) to sterilize surgical instruments and other items needed for surgery. Muvonde Hospital is located 120 miles south of Harare.
Refurbished autoclave of the type purchased by BHA for Muvonde Hospital.
The refurbished, $7,500 autoclave measures 24” x 36” x 60”. It was rebuilt by and purchased from CHOSEN Mission Project and included in a container of donated medical supplies assembled for Muvonde Hospital and Nyadire Hospital by Brother’s Brother Foundation (BBF). BBF shipped the container to Zimbabwe Oct. 17.
Muvonde Hospital has 190 beds and a School of Nursing. It has been without a large autoclave since 1990, says administrator Mr. Musvolen Zhou. “We have been relying on two small [autoclaves], which have to work almost the whole day due to the number of items which need to be autoclaved,” he said by email. “The new autoclave will mean saving electrical power, saving manpower [because workers must] attend the autoclave everyday and the whole day, and it will prompt provision of sterile material to user departments.”
Muvonde was one of five hospitals visited by BHA in March 2011. The hospital performs a high number of surgeries (528 major and 469 minor surgeries in 2009), including prostatectomies, mastectomies and emergencies, three or more per day. Two days a week are reserved for eye surgeries for cataracts and glaucoma.
The crated autoclave in the Brother's Brother warehouse ready for loading into the container and shipment to Muvonde Mission Hospital.
Please send a donation to BHA today to help improve healthcare access, treatment and education for underserved people in southern Africa. Your contribution will support care and education programs at St Albert’s Mission Hospital, targeted equipment purchases such as a large autoclave for Muvonde Mission Hospital, and treatment programs such as Maipelo Trust.
By Darrell E. Ward
View Tracking the St. Albert’s Container in a larger map
BBF begins planning to ship donated medical supplies to three African countries, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Liberia. Luke Hingson, president of BBF, contacted BHA for help in reaching Dr Elizabeth Tarira, director of the Zimbabwe Catholic Health Commission, which oversees Zimbabwe’s network of Catholic mission hospitals. BBF then works with Dr. Tarira, who also directs St. Albert’s Mission Hospital, to identify the Catholic mission hospitals in Zimbabwe most in need of aid.
December: BBF Medical Director Dr. Chip Lambert makes a reconnaissance trip to visit the hospitals identified for possible shipments. The list for Zimbabwe list includes Catholic and Methodist hospitals, and a Salvation Army hospital. Read more »
Abby Norris Turner, PhD, is a public health researcher in Ohio State University’s Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, who has conducted research in Zimbabwe since 1999. Her work focuses on women’s reproductive and sexual health. Her current project involves a counseling intervention related to practices that women undertake such as drying the vagina to increase male pleasure during intercourse. Such “dry sex” may increase the risk of acquisition of HIV as well as another reproductive tract infection called bacterial vaginosis.
Before Abby left for a trip to Zimbabwe in April, Better Healthcare for Africa helped her arrange a meeting in Harare with Dr. Elizabeth Tarira, director of St. Albert’s Mission Hospital, to explore the possibility of doing some work at St. Albert’s. Abby asked Elizabeth to name the most pressing public health problems in the area around St. Albert’s. Here are the leading problems Elizabeth noted: Read more »
Dr. Elizabeth Tarira (right) with her mother and sister Juliet. Juliet runs the Shelter Trust, an NGO in Harare that works with St. Albert's Hospital to care for abandoned pregnant women.
Rome
21st June 2011
Dearest Friends,
God has always good plans for each and every one of us.
Greetings from Rome! Some of you have been following my breast-cancer illness for many years now, so I have to give you some updates. It seems I have developed resistance to the drugs I have been taking.
At the end of 2009, I had another small lump operated just below the previous scar and had a small mark on the sternum bone. The cancer markers that had started going up, after the operation and the change of therapy, started going down. This year at my check up, the markers had risen again and seemed on a loose end, and one of the ribs had some osteoblast sign (the bone looked eaten up). This did puzzle the doctors. Now I have been put on a new hormone treatment which is an injection (chemotherapy) every 28 days. I do not know yet if I shall respond well to this treatment. I shall have the blood test repeated on the 4th of July. The drug name is Faslodex (generic name, fulvestrant) produced by Astra Zeneca. Read more »
Occasionally we are in the right place at the right time with the right people. This time, that place for me was on the phone with Brother’s Brother Foundation (BBF). The opportunity resulted in a donation of five specialized pediatric wheelchairs for St. Albert’s Mission Hospital. For me, it also led to a renewed appreciation for the work that so many individuals and organizations are doing to improve healthcare in underserved areas of the world. Here is how events unfolded. Read more »
This model of a pelvis with fetal heads was one of two hand-carried to St Albert's in March.
The number of midwives in Zimbabwe’s public sector is down by 80 percent, making it difficult for pregnant woman to find skilled assistance for the delivery of their babies, according to a 12 May 2011 news story by IRIN, the United Nations humanitarian-news organization.
The article notes that midwives can avert 80-90 percent of maternal deaths and reduce the deaths of newborns from preventable complications.
This information comes from a recent report on Zimbabwe’s progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, compiled by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization. To help ease the shortage, St. Albert’s Mission Hospital will begin a midwife training program in September 2011. Better Healthcare for Africa (BHA) is supporting the St. Albert’s program by purchasing teaching models and other supplies that will help provide effective and realistic training for the midwifery students. Funds provided by BHA contributors made these purchases possible. Read more »
Elderly woman with cervical cancer and vaginal fistula. She was cared for by her daughter.
The 9 March 2011 post about cancer care in Zimbabwe has led to a series of interesting comments, many of them relate to cervical and breast cancer. The suffering caused by cervical cancer in Zimbabwe was etched into my mind in December 2000, during my second visit to St. Albert’s. I was with the hospital’s home-based care team as they did home visits. The eight or ten stops that day included the elderly woman in this photo who had cervical cancer. In her case, progression of the cancer had caused a vaginal fistula. The woman hardly stirred while we were there. The woman’s husband had abandoned her in this hut on their homestead. She was destined to spend her last days lying on empty feed sacks on the hard floor. Fortunately, she was cared for by the daughter in the photo.
I thought about the work that caring for the elderly woman had to require. In the U.S., caring for an incontinent elderly adult is difficult even with washing machines, dryers, unlimited clean water, and stocks of sheets and clothing. The daughter had none of those conveniences…no appliances, no electricity, and she had to fetch water, perhaps from some distance away. The St. Albert’s team checked the elderly woman’s condition, answered the daughter’s questions and offered advice on how to keep the woman as comfortable as possible. The team provided paracetamol (a mild pain killer) and some pads, bandages and other supplies. Then we returned to our pick-up truck and left for the next stop. I took with me this woman’s image. Read more »
For more than thirty years I have been an oncology social worker, and, since 1993, I have also been a woman living with breast cancer. I am the Chief of Oncology Social Work here at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. In addition to my clinical responsibilities, I am on the faculty of the Simmons College School of Social Work, give many lectures and talks, and have written a number of professional articles and two books about coping with breast cancer. For a year, ending in November 2008, I wrote a blog for RevolutionHealth.com and loved the experience of connecting with women all over the world. When that opportunity ended, I was delighted that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center decided to support a similar program. I now write a daily blog about various medical and psychosocial concerns, Living with Breast Cancer.
I had been working with women with breast cancer for 14 years at the time of my first diagnosis. I thought that I knew a lot about what it was like to live with breast cancer, but, in the first minute after hearing the words from my doctor, I realized that I knew nothing. Spending my days with women coping with cancer should have prepared me for my own diagnosis. But like almost everyone else, I was stunned by the news and most helped by other women who had walked this path. Their experiences informed and guided me, and I could not have managed as well without the breast cancer community that surrounds me. Read more »