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 »
About Better Healthcare for Africa
January 24th, 2010Life in Zimbabwe: Jess Cosby’s blog
August 29th, 2010A friend recently told me about a blog kept by Jess Cosby, a young British nurse who specializes in tropical nursing and in caring for people with HIV/AIDS. She worked as a surgical nurse in Gambia and Sierra Leone, earned a MSc in public health and spent a year in Botswana providing support for healthcare workers caring for Batswana with HIV/AIDS. Jess is now in Zimbabwe for a year on her first Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) mission. Read about her adventures on her blog, “Jess in Zim.”
Darrell
St. Albert’s Mission hospital News, July 2009-July 2010
August 8th, 2010Note: This post was written by Dr. Elizabeth Tarira, director of St. Albert’s Mission Hospital.
Zimbabwe is currently preparing for a home grown constitution, but difficulties are being encountered here and there because some people are pushing for a constitution (Kariba Draft) that was tailored by the ruling party alone.
The economic crisis is still far to be over and even made worse by the global crisis that has its deep impact upon the poor countries as well. In our country the rich are becoming richer, while the poor are becoming poorer.
Just a brief summary of what we went through and of what awaits us as health providers: Read more »
Donate to St. Albert’s Mission Hospital
August 3rd, 2010Better Healthcare for Africa, Inc., is dedicated to assisting St. Albert’s Mission Hospital provide health care to some 120,000 underserved people living in a rural area of northern Zimbabwe. But we need your help.
Please make a secure, tax-deductible donation to BHA using PayPal or by sending a check.
Dr. Tarira on YouTube — in Italian
January 27th, 2010Thomas Taschbach is a friend and a German nurse who works for CARITAS in Aachen. I met him when he was a nursing student volunteering at St. Albert’s in 2006. He sent an email yesterday with these two YouTube stories featuring Elizabeth, who is speaking Italian. The interviews were recorded at the hospital. The first looks to be from an Italian TV news program about the work of CESVI, an Italian NGO. CESVI supports the hospital’s HIV prevention and education programs in a big way. In 2001, St. Albert’s became the first rural hospital in Zimbabwe to offer a Mother-to-Child Transmission Prevention (MTCTP) program. This was a demonstration project that provided nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women and their infants and was funded by CESVI. It showed that rural hospitals in Zimbabwe could offer MTCTP programs as successfully as urban hospitals. In the first story, Elizabeth is wearing her glasses and looks her usual self. In the second, titled “Thank you Doctor Elisabeth Tarira,” shows her in her office. I’ll add more about these stories after passing them by some Italian friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bgm9Alb9CI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPLf0wDZQ4
Posted by Darrell Ward
St. Albert’s Mission Hospital Travels to the St. Louis College of Pharmacy
November 15th, 2009On Nov. 4th and 5th 2009, Darrell Ward gave two presentations about St. Albert’s Mission Hospital to students at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy in St. Louis, Mo.
The talk and slide presentation, “Zimbabwe in Crisis: St. Albert’s Mission Hospital copes with a collapsed national economy and healthcare system,” was sponsored by the college’s International Student Organization and was part of the college’s convocation lecture series. The talk was presented at the invitation of Carol Oliver, PhD, associate professor of English.
The second talk, about Zimbabwe’s economic crisis and its effects on the hospital, was presented to a class of economics students at the invitation of Kenneth Schafermeyer, PhD, professor and director of the Division of Liberal Arts and Administrative Sciences.
These talks illustrate how the problems of Zimbabwe affect one rural mission hospital, its doctors, and the 120,000 people who live in its health district. My goals are to raise awareness of the problems facing St. Albert’s Mission Hospital, to encourage material and moral support for its doctors and staff, and to promote helping the underserved as a way to make a difference, have an adventure, and meet interesting people.
Darrell Ward (dward@betterhealthcareforafrica.org)
Elizabeth Tarira heads new health commission
November 14th, 2009In May, Elizabeth Tarira, MD, MPH, director of St. Albert’s Mission Hospital, was appointed the first director of the Health Commission of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The new commission oversees the operation of Zimbabwe’s 51 Catholic mission hospitals and clinics. “This is important because mission hospitals are providing most of the health care in the country,” Elizabeth wrote by email. She added that it will be easier to approach large Catholic funders by presenting many health centers together. She will also give direction to the Bishops’ about the state of the mission hospitals and will liase with the Ministry of Health. Elizabeth remains the director of St. Albert’s Mission Hospital, while working several days a week in Harare to organize and establish the new oversight office.
Suture, sterile gauze, children’s books delivered
September 8th, 2009The Friends of St. Albert’s want to thank Global Links Suture Donation Program for sending 800 sutures for St. Albert’s Mission Hospital. Those sutures, along with rolls of sterile gauze and race-appropriate books for hospitalized children, were delivered Monday, Sept. 7. The box was taken to Rome by a physician traveling from Columbus, Ohio, to Rome. Two representatives from the Associazione Sanitaria Internazionale (International Medical Association) office in Rome were at the airport to receive the package. The package will be carried to St. Albert’s by hospital director Dr. Elizabeth Tarira, who will be in Rome for several weeks starting next week.
Darrell
Former St. Albert’s Volunteer to work with Navajo Nation Hospitals
September 1st, 2009Tim Harris volunteered at St. Albert’s during Christmas break 2006 after learning about the hospital through a presentation I gave at Oregon State University. Tim served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the southern African nation of Lesotho during 2002-2004. He lived in the remote mountain village of HaMojakisane, Read more »
Visit to St. Albert’s, March 2009
August 25th, 2009I visited St. Albert’s for two weeks this year beginning March 1st. I spent the first week traveling with Melania Nyamukuwa, director of the hospital’s orphan, home-based care, and counseling and testing programs. The orphan program matches children who have lost one or both parents with donors who Read more »