Kenya Project Introduction
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.
Histopathology Services - From 1991 to 1995, the histopathology service was rendered out of a rented facility in Nairobi. We steadily build up our caseload from approximately two hundred and fifty (250) to more than four hundred (400) cases per month. Specimens were contributed by more than thirty (30) hospitals. Sixty-five (65) pathologists volunteered more than ninety (90) months of service during this phase of the project. In addition to the pathologists, two histotechnologists each volunteered one month of their time to train our histotechnician in Nairobi. Some of the spouses of our volunteer pathologists have a histotechnology background and provided ongoing training for our histotechnician.
Clinical Laboratory Improvement - Efforts toward improving the clinical laboratories at the mission hospitals have been limited by our financial resources. Initial efforts consisted of two tours around the Mount Kenya area to survey the needs of the clinical laboratories in the mission hospitals. In August 1993, the first Clinical Laboratory Education and Improvement seminar was held at Kijabe Hospital. This three-day course was attended by laboratory personnel from six regional hospitals. A second three-day seminar was held in western Kenya in June 1994. Following this conference, the seminar leaders visited five other hospitals in the western Kenya area for additional on-site training and consultation. Both seminars were well received and reports from all participants were very positive.
Project Finances - Through the first eighteen months of our existence, the Kenya project was totally supported by donations from private individuals. We subsequently obtained additional financial support through a grant from the United State Agency for International Development (USAID), private foundations and fund-raising activities.
All pathologists and most technologists volunteering for this project have paid for their own expenses. This included travel expenses to and from Nairobi and living expenses while in Kenya (food, out-of-town transportation, etc.).
Current Status - When we started this project, our ultimate goal was to establish an indigenous, self-sustaining histopathology service for Kenya. This goal was accomplished in March 1995, when the project was transferred to Kijabe Medical Center (KMC), a mission hospital located 40 miles outside Nairobi. Pathologists Overseas contributed over US$ 100,000 toward the relocation of this laboratory, including the construction of a new facility to house the pathologist on site and donation of additional equipment.
When Kijabe Medical Center took over this project, their intention was to recruit a long-term, full-time pathologist to join their staff of missionary physicians. Unfortunately, this has not been successful. Meanwhile, they have continued to staff the laboratory with short-term volunteers. Quite a few past volunteers from our Nairobi laboratory subsequently served at Kijabe Medical Center. World Medical Missions is responsible for the recruitment and scheduling of these short -term volunteers and was able to provide histopathology coverage at Kijabe Medical Center for the past twelve years.
