Matthias Nicola

A hospital in Tanzania

Rear view of the missionary hospital in Nyangao.
Sr. Andrea, former hospital administrator, arriving for work.
Patients bedded on the floor, or two patients in one bed is unfortunately still reality in some Tanzanian hospitals.
The wards are always in need of new beds, sheets and other hospital equipment.
The hospital cannot afford to provide food for all patients. Thus, many patients' relatives stay outside the hospital and cook. Often for many days until the patient is discharged.
In Nyangao Hospital, there are around 1500 major and minor operations per year.
Another view in the theatre.
A child on the paediatric ward.
To combat malnutrition and child mortality, young children are weighed regularly.
The results are marked in Road-to-health charts. The resulting graphs should stay above the red area which indicates malnutrition.
Such awareness is brought into the remote villages through the PHC programme (public health care). Women are listening to the medical instructor, and the scale is ready for use on the tree.
Children between 0 and 5 years should be weighed at least once per month, at the hospital or out in the village.
A young mother feeding up her malnutritioned child at the hospital.
For many pregnant women a hospital is too far away to reach for delivery, so they rely on TBAs (traditional birth attendants). Even if some of them are illiterate, they are educated for their job in the villages using drawings.
A cross.