Building Health
Building Hope
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Giving the best medical and surgical care possible according to the means that God provides, with compassion, and sharing the gospel of Christ clearly with everyone who comes.
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July 2018
Dear friends and prayer partners of CEH,
During the past few months, both construction and medical teams from the United States completed short term projects at Compassion Evangelical Hospital. They accomplished much in the short time each team served.
As I pen this update I am reminded of how each morning begins on the veranda of the CEH Clinic. I hope the pictures shared in this update and my words describing how we serve the people each day create in you renewed passion to be part of this work.
Thank you for your continued prayer and financial involvement which allows the ongoing operation of all God is doing at the hospital and in the lives of the people we love in West Africa.
Dr. Dwight Slater MD
CEO of CEH
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Sunrise Each Day
As the sun rises on another day in Mamou, patients who are ill begin to gather on the veranda of the CEH clinic. Some have been ill for decades, others have become ill recently, but all are coming to the hospital that is earning the reputation of being the best full-service hospital in their region. The people of Guinea are religious and understand that their physical health and spiritual life are connected. We hold that tenant as well, while also seeking to treat each patient with the good foundations of modern health science.
As the patients arrive on the veranda there is a presentation of a story or topic from the Bible. At the end of that time the chaplain will ask the crowd if they would like to be prayed for as they seek their health care that day and 95% of the patients raise their hands. He will then pray for those who requested prayer.
After this morning time of prayer, the registration opens. Each person is registered in the order he or she arrived. The patients pass through a triage room to see a doctor or nurse. Lab may be ordered and then performed (Guineans put great faith in lab testing). Then they will join a line on the veranda to wait to be called into one of the five consultation rooms. When the diagnosis is made and patient education has been given, they are given prescriptions to be filled in our hospital pharmacy. The fastest will be finished in about 90 minutes, but all will be completed by the end of the day. (For Africa that is great!)
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| Pastor Oumar on veranda with patients |
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CEH Medical Staff
The medical staff consisting of four physicians, a dentist, an optometrist, 30 nurses/technicians and nine administrative staff are all Christians. They seek to care for patients with compassionate
competent medical care and share Christ with those they serve. The average patient count per day is 45 and the hope is that this number will grow. But the focus is on each individual patient, unique and important ΜΆΜΆ loved and cared for by God. Our Christian staff are instruments in His hands as He touches their lives at CEH.
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Some of the CEH staff pictured above with the May medical team.
There are currently 58 total national staff members.
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Medical Team and Equipment
The May medical team of three doctors and two nurses initiated the new medical warehouse's organization. They were vitally involved in medical education of hospital staff. Patients with congestive heart failure, coma and needing a chest tube were examples of patients who presented the very days the didactic teaching was given. Praise God!
CEH has the only operational x-ray in the region of about 4 million people. Two ultrasound machines also help in the diagnosis of patients' problems. There are now two major ORs, one minor OR, and a sterilization center. Dental services and ophthalmologic services are also available. The solar panels and batteries, backed up by two generators, allow the hospital to be one of the very few in the nation that has 24/7 electricity with all the advantages that can offer. An emergency room with seven stretchers is used to care for true emergencies and to prepare patients for hospitalization in any of the 44 hospital beds now available. (In May we had up to 95% occupancy.)
Twenty-eight buildings have been constructed. Thanks to the US construction and then medical teams which worked at CEH this past April and May, and the many containers of materials that have been shipped over the last 10 years, the hospital now has the best equipped medical supply storeroom in the nation. Some of these supplies can be shared with other regional clinics and hospitals. Each year we generally ship another container of "new for us" medical equipment and furnishings, medical supplies and medicines, and construction materials. All of this is so that we can serve each patient well.
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Newly constructed medical storage area
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MIAPE
On the NE corner of the property we ceded land to our sister mission, MIAPE. They built a chapel and a seven-room school named Fresh Dew School. The enrollment is 260 students with excellent results. They have a Welcome Center designed to serve as lodging for new believers ostracized for their faith and for hospital overflow at times. This portion of the property is well used! The CEH Board also approved ceding the SE corner to build the secondary school. MIAPE hopes to initiate this building project in the next two years. We have been relocating our medical supplies from that corner to our new warehouse.
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Students with a teacher at Fresh Dew School
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| Students on the playground |
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Ongoing Construction
The construction team led by George W. in April and May, accomplished all projects for the new medical warehouse and many additional projects for the hospital and Fresh Dew Elementary School. George is already planning the next construction team trip for late November or December. The hospital and school could not function well without this work! We are so thankful for their contributions!
The next two construction projects for the hospital will be the Dental and Ophthalmological Offices ($50,000) and the expansion of the clinic by six more consultation rooms with its veranda ($70,000). In addition: Laboratory, Pharmacy, Doctor's library, and outpatient wound care will all be expanded by these renovations. Each of these projects will allow us to serve patients much better and to reorganize the use of the current rooms to assist the patient flow as we serve more patients.
This year we are also developing about three acres of the central property for a new International Nursing School which Etienne developed the plan for in his master's thesis last year. The funding for the five buildings of that school will total $130,000. Though Etienne will be raising most of this funding independently, CEH has agreed to route tax deductible gifts for the school since the students will also be doing their practical training in the hospital and we expect to recruit many of our future nurses from that school. The hope is to open in January 2019. Teaching staff and curriculum are being developed. Pray with us for all these opportunities.
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Pray with us
Please pray with us for God's will, for His leading and for wisdom as we continue negotiations with an African surgeon and family not from Guinea. When he comes, CEH will also hire a Guinean nurse anesthetist and a Guinean doctor who would like to be trained in surgery. At the same time, Dr. Lamine, professor of laboratory and pharmacology at the national university who has been very influential in the Guinea Ministry of Health, is available to us as a part time consultant and we engaged his services to help us develop further in these areas.
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| Patients waiting on the CEH veranda |
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