Match met and exceeded:
A generation of health workers

The generous response from you means Dr. Catena and Gidel Hospital will be able to literally train a generation of health workers as well as meet other needs of this isolated outpost struggling within a war zone.

On behalf of Dr. Catena and the hospital, thank you.  Dr. Catena's recent report from the field is below.

African Mission Healthcare Foundation
From Dr. Catena:

These past two months [Oct / Nov] have been a very busy time for the pediatric ward. We are at the end of the rainy season and this time coincides with the peak in malaria cases. Our inpatient census on the ward has been steady at 125 children throughout the past two months and should stay at that level for the next month or so. 

Malaria cases require much work from the nursing staff as many of the children have severe malaria and need to be put on intravenous quinine. It takes a lot of skill to place an IV cannula in a small baby, many of whom are dehydrated, and to monitor the intravenous infusion of quinine. 

Except for two nurses, all of our pediatric ward staff have been trained on the job and have performed their work in an exceptional manner. 

To add another challenge to this already overwhelming task, we have no power at night as our solar batteries need to be replaced [note: these have since been replaced]. This means they spend the night in darkness and must place IV cannulas and monitor IV infusions using a flashlight. The flashlights are never enough so they have to share with the other wards.

In addition to the malaria cases, we've had a number of challenging pediatric surgery cases over the past month. One is a year and a half old boy named Wail who has a massive congenital goiter (thyroid enlargement). The huge goiter was causing him some difficulty breathing and needed to be removed. We performed a successful subtotal [partial] thyroidectomy and he's recovering well now.

Another case was a one month baby girl named Kuchi who was born with a congenital defect called an anterior encephalocele. In this defect, the front part of the skull between the nose and the eye fails to close resulting in a protrusion of the brain and spinal fluid through the gap of missing bone. We were able to reduce the swelling and repair the problem, covering over the brain and filling in the defect with a bone graft taken from the baby's hip.

Another case was a leg amputation of a one year old boy who had an amniotic band syndrome. We hope to fit him with a leg prosthesis when two orthopedic technicians visit.

The anesthesia for all of these cases was provided by our sole anesthetist named Mandi. Mandi had finished primary school many years ago and worked with us as an operating room nurse for many years before deciding to start secondary school back. Unfortunately, the war broke out in 2011, the school was closed and Mandi came back to work for us in the operating room. He received anesthesia training on the job and for the past year and a half has been our only anesthetist. 

In the US, these pediatric cases would be handled by a specialist in pediatric anesthesia--a medical doctor with many years of specialized training and equipment. Mandi performed the anesthesia flawlessly using our simple anesthetic equipment and the cases went off without a hitch. We currently have two of our staff in anesthesia training in Kenya and hope to send Mandi at some point in the future.

I wish to say a sincere thank you to all of our supporters on behalf of our staff.

Gidel Mother of Mercy Hospital is the only functional hospital in the Nuba Mountains and serves a population of at least a half a million people.  Dr. Catena is the lone full-time physician.  The Diocese of El Obeid owns and operates the hospital.  AMHF provides US 501(c)3 charitable representation. Tax deductible donations may be made securely via DonorBox or by sending a check to AMHF, PO Box 2783, Westerville, OH 43086. 100% of gifts are credited to the hospital account.