Recent News

Peru is a South American country well known to many Americans as a popular tourist destination. While medical care and resources are readily available in Lima, the capital, much of the country is still suffering from sub-standard care. Our involvement in Peru is an attempt to extend much needed pathology and laboratory services in the underserved areas far removed from Lima. Our initial contact is in the town of Pucallpa.

Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, the Kingdom of Nepal had been isolated from the outside world until fifty years ago when it opened its doors to a few select tourists. Today, tourism is a major source of foreign exchange and the Himalaya mountain range is the Mecca for trekkers and mountaineers.

Madagascar was a French colony from the late 1800's until 1960, when it became an independent country. Most of the country's 13 million population survive through subsistence farming, cattle raising, or fishing. With a Gross National Product (GNP) of US$ 210 per capita, the World Bank has consistently rated Madagascar among the ten poorest countries in world.

Kenya, East Africa, was the site of our first project. Up to fifty (50) hospitals are operated by church organizations in rural Kenya as charitable institutions. Approximately thirty are operated by the Catholic missionaries under the Kenya Catholic Secretariat (KCS). Another sixteen are operated by various Protestant denominations and affiliated with the Christian Health Association of Kenya (CHAK). Together, these hospitals provide forty percent (40%) of the primary health care needs of Kenya. These hospitals are located in rural areas of Kenya and the patients they serve generally have little or no access to the government or private healthcare system due to financial and/or geographic limitations. The size and location of these facilities are such that establishing their own histopathology services on-site is not practical for them. Our initial goal was to centralize the histopathology service by establishing a histopathology laboratory in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. This proved to be an efficient way to provide histopathology service to these rural hospitals. A second goal was to upgrade the clinical laboratory facilities of these hospitals through educational forums for the technologists and on-site consultations by experienced pathologists and technologists.

This introduction is written by Thomas D. Coppin, MD, the project director and explains how the project got started and the situation justifying the project.

In early May 2007 I received a telephone call asking if I would consider providing anatomic pathology in Ghana. The details of the problem were so lacking I decided to make a site visit and evaluate this as a pathologist.. I discussed this with Dr. DeVon Hale, assistant dean of international medicine at the University of Utah as he has spearheaded various medical projects in Ghana involving the university. He invited me to go with him from 23 June to 6 July 2007. In the short time before leaving I remembered something about Pathologists Overseas, found the web site and made contact asking what I should be looking for. Dr. Heinze Hoenecke and Dr. Victor Lee responded immediately and gave me excellent information.

Eritrea is one of Africa's newest nations, having won its independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Located on the shores of the Red Sea, it is the size of Mississippi with a population of 3.5 million. Colonized by Italy in the late 19th century, Eritrea emerged from World War II expecting to be recognized as an independent nation. Instead, it was dominated and finally annexed by neighboring Ethiopia in 1962. For the next three decades, the ill-equipped Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) struggled for independence against one of Africa's largest armies. Their struggle and final victory is a true story of the underdog.