Nandumbo, where the clinic is situated, is a large village in the northern Balaka district with a population of over 1,000, nearly half of them children. A healthcare center had been partially constructed in an effort to give healthcare to the people in Nandumbo and surrounding villages, but was never completed due to lack of funding.
HELP believes education and health are counterparts of one another. HELP has partnered with the Malawian Ministry of Health to construct a rural healthcare clinic and maternity wing in Nandumbo, Malawi that will provide vital primary medical care to a medically needy population of approximately 60,000 people. The majority of the area population lives without primary health care and dies before the age of 35 from treatable conditions.
Health care services will consist of an 11-bed maternity wing, a walk in primary care clinic, dispensary, and staff housing. Primary health care services to be offered will include: immunizations, growth monitoring, safe motherhood: antenatal care, delivery assistance, and post natal care, family planning, health education on important public health problems such as nutrition, prevention of Malaria and HIV infection, simple and effective treatment of diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections, management of other common illnesses and conditions, TB control, HIV/AIDS testing and first line treatment of HIV/AIDs.
Supplemental medical furnishings are projected to be supplied through MedWish International, a non-profit organization committed to the recovery and recycling of reusable medical supplies. Many thanks to Mr. Bob Swan and his congregation for the generous funding for some of the maternity wing construction costs.
In July, 2008, Jillian Wolstein and other volunteers traveled to Malawi to participate in HELP projects and to donate badly needed medical supplies to the Balaka District Hospital. This hospital, which is the district hospital in the Balaka district of Malawi, is in continuous need of donated medical supplies and operates within severe constraints. Many thanks to MedWish International for contributing 120 pounds of wound care supplies and topical ointment, as well as Brothers Brother International, which donated 24,000 amoxicillin (antibiotic tablets). We look forward to continuing to work with you!
HELP has asked MedWish International to step in and outfit the clinic once construction has been completed. With the help of MedWish International the clinic will have everything it needs to provide proper healthcare to the students at Nanthomba School and the people in nearby villages. The primary care component is open, while the maternity wing is projected to open by the winter of 2009.
