Why Africa, Madagascar, Antsirabe? Over the past three years our foreign sales, also in the so-called Third World, have grown considerably.
As we travel the world and visit local hospitals and other health care facilities, we feel very sad, even horrified, that patients are treated in extremely bad conditions and medical staff lack the equipment to diagnose them and, as a result, many people die. Often, such facilities have no more than several dozen beds and many patients have to wait to be admitted. We can no longer remain indifferent to their plight.
Antsirabe is located in the central part of Madagascar. People from more than half the country come to the city to obtain medical assistance. Neither the city, nor the hospital, which has been run for 65 years by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, can offer specialist check-ups, which are available only in the capital, but access to the capital is extremely difficult due to the long distance and lack of infrastructure. Patients in critical condition do not make it there and die on the way. Anyway, most of the poor cannot afford the journey. Also, the residents of the city, its surrounding areas and even remote parts of the country know that you do not have to pay bribes at the hospital run by the Sisters, which is exceptional as corruption in the country is rife. The hospital does its best to save people’s lives, even if some of these lives, due to patients’ critical condition, will not be long. The expansion of the Antsirabe hospital, and new equipment, are absolutely essential for saving the lives of more than half of Madagascar’s population.
For 61 years the hospital had operated only two units: the obstetrics and neonatal ward and the clinic. It offered adequate conditions for mothers to give birth, reducing the mortality rate of both mothers and babies. This meant, however, that other patients could not be admitted. The hospital management faced a new challenge: to open new wards to be able to admit legions of patients from the waiting list. With the help of generous people, two floors were added to the old hospital, but there is still not enough room: the internal ward has 17 beds, the surgery unit 14 beds, the pediatric ward 10 beds, the obstetrics ward 31 beds. There are also three small operating rooms in the building where all operations are performed. Medical gases are supplied from cylinders. The recovery room has two beds and no requisite equipment.
The most critically needed medical equipment, which the management and staff are in desperate need for, apart from funds needed to build and fit the new wing, include a mammograph (breast cancer is common in Madagascar), a tomograph, a gastroscope, and anaesthetic equipment.
Our main goal
The Executive Board of INMED have decided to respond to the ‘cry for help’ by joining the efforts to help the Antsirabe hospital, both offering financial support and donating the equipment we make, i.e. bedhead units and other equipment:
- for the newly built emergency room, which is already operational,
- for the new wing, set for completion in the first quarter of 2020,
- a computer tomograph;
We are still raising the required funds. Payments can be made into the Foundation’s bank account: EUR 46 1050 1575 1000 0090 3259 0029. Please specify that your payment is towards “medical equipment for Antsirabe hospital”).We are very happy that we can help the hospital. The project requires effort and time, but we believe that by taking a step-by-step approach, we will be able to meet the needs of the Antsirabe patients. We do not want it to be a one-off thing ‒ we will get involved as much as we can by donating bedhead units and other necessary equipment.
