Today
In the first four years of operation, we’ve seen more than 50,000 individual patients and installed solar energy panels to power the facility, a VSAT internet system for communications and Electronic Medical Records, and a 14,000 gallon water collection cistern providing the first ever source of potable water on site and to the surrounding communities.
Adjacent to the clinic, we built a teaching farm for agricultural training to address root causes of malnutrition. Together with the support of our friends in the US, we built a staff and volunteer residence, a children’s malnutrition ward and in-patient facility with a waiting area, lab and IT room. A community center, the “Light House,” was completed in January 2010.The construction of the first Women’s Health Pavilion, a 50-bed hospital for women, is scheduled to begin in 2012. It will more than double our inpatient capacity and allow us to offer new critical services such as cesarean sections, general surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery and other currently nonexistent medical services.
In our community center we hold community meetings, trainings Community Health Workers, classes and after school programs, and community engagement events where people discuss the progress of the VHW programs. We teach nutrition and other basic health issues, and provide continuing education for both clinical and non-clinical staff.
As of today, VHW employees are 146. The team on the ground is made of four Burundian doctors, fourteen nurses, two lab technicians, and 60 Community Health Workers. Additional staff comprise our leadership, security, cleaning, food security crew, kitchen and maintenance teams. 98 percent of our staff members are Burundian.
In our clinic, we have seen patients suffering from every ailment seen in the US, except Alzheimer’s because people in Burundi do not live long enough to suffer from this problem. Despite the progress already made in such a short time with little resources, we are unfortunately not yet able to address all the health problems that some patients suffer from because of lack of enough medical infrastructure and tools.
In addition to our strong local community partnership, VHW has forged partnerships with the government of Burundi, Columbia University, Partners in Health, as well as several private and intergovernmental organizations with similar missions.
Thanks to generous donations from supporters around the world, VHW has flourished and is positioned for transformative growth in the coming years.
