18 years

18 years is the difference of life expectancy between people born in the EU and Malawi. So while the EU citizen goes from their first baby steps up to entering university, the person in Malawi is not even born, yet they will both statistically die in the same year.

While there are many different reasons for this, the numbers speak for themselves.

There are 385 doctors/medical practitioners for 100,000 people in Ireland, 453 in Germany, yet there are only 5 doctors/medical professionals in Malawi for the same number of people.

In Malawi, healthcare is free, but access to healthcare is the real challenge which is why we have established/re-established or currently support 16 health clinics in our Landscape Restoration Project Areas, with the cooperation and guidance of the local Health Boards in those areas. These Clinics are run at least once per month with a total of ca. 18-20 happening each month in the different areas.

Outreach Clinics

The idea is as simple as effective: Invite or hire medical professionals to an outreach health clinic and suddenly thousands of people will show up who have never been to a doctor in their lifetime.

This program is always coupled with our large scale Landscape Restoration projects as many of the villages we work with have asked to support them with a health clinic establishment. Outreach clinics are basic rooms where patients can be treated in the required privacy.

Clinics are established in cooperation with the Mzimba North District Health Office, Ekwendeni Mission Hospital and the Mzimba South District Health Office.

Services

At the clinic days there are educational programs in a meeting/lecture-style format about general topics e.g. healthy nutrition, family planning as well as knowledge on how to prevent waterborne diseases etc.

Individual health consultations happen including weighing of babies for nutritional purposes, Malaria testing, Immunizations, Prenatal and Antenatal care, contraception, first aid, cancer screening, and HIV Testing for women and men. Medical referrals are available when necessary.

Sonography

As basic diagnostic tools are usually missing in Malawi it is unfortunately rather common to prescribe antibiotics in cases where it can even be counterproductive. To give an example:

A 2-year-old boy presents with a persistent cough, fever, and generalized weakness. His clinical condition is further complicated by signs of undernutrition, which may be contributing to his overall weakness. The underlying cause of his condition is unclear.

In this scenario, pneumonia can not be ruled out without professional equipment, therefore, antibiotic treatment might be the usual procedure. Unfortunately if it was misdiagnosed the antibiotic treatment would harm the intestinal flora as well as antibiotic resistance might develop.

We are excited that we could gain Dr. Joachim Gröschel, Dr. Martin Krajewski, and nurse Angelika Möhrer from Interplast Germany e.V. as supporters of our project: They implemented some training sessions at three hospitals covering ultrasound techniques and tele-sonography. Over 80 healthcare professionals participated, learning to diagnose conditions such as pneumonia in children and pregnancy complications. Thanks to the expertise of Dr. Joachim we now have modern mobile ultrasound devices that can be used with an ipad or even a regular mobile phone.

A great feature is that with tele-sonography, Dr. Joachim or any other healthcare professional could see the patient as well as the ultrasound in real time and give advice over the phone on additional medical procedures.

Our nurse Alepher Banda has successfully demonstrated that she can examine a patient in the field while Dr. Joachim can advise from his office in Germany.

Through this modern technology Alepher was able to rule out pneumonia in a similar scenario.

the German report of the activities with Wells for Zoë from Interplast

Compliance

All activities and consultations are in direct collaboration with the Mzimba North and South District Health Offices and Ekwendeni Mission Hospital and all people involved are medical professionals; either nurses, clinicians or medical doctors.