11 July 2007

Dear Friends,

 

God is good! Progress is great on the new hospital. The long awaited loan has allowed us to move forward with great pace. It has allowed us to move with the Mechanical and Electrical works including a very critical and expensive air filtering system for the Orthopedic Operating Rooms! 

 

Donations for construction and equipment continue to astound us. A couple of wonderful anonymous gifts have carried us far forward in the construction. The work of Global Health Ministries has been tireless in procuring and sending donated equipment. The Friedkin family, who are owners of a local safari company, has wonderfully provided us with a new digital X-Ray for the hospital and the African Health and Hospital Foundation has just succeeded in procuring a donated CT Scan for us!

 

The ALMC Transition Team is up and active. Visiting other new hospitals, like our partner EXEMPLA Health Care in Denver, has given us a greater sense of urgency. The tasks of staffing, equipping, training, and implementing the thousands of systems contained in running a hospital is truly daunting. We have been working with consultants and volunteers for the past two years and yet feel hugely challenged by what is yet before us.

 

If all continues as planned, the hospital will be physically turned over to us in November. We will then use at least two months to equip, introduce and train the new staff, and hopefully begin to take patients in mid January. Our tentative date for the grand opening celebrations is now the weekend of the 26^th and 27^th of January.   We are waiting on confirmation of the timing from the President of Tanzania who has been invited to open the new facility. 

 

Our eagerness to be able to serve from within and through this wonderful new facility is limitlessness. The growth of our Selian Orthopedic outreach to the crippled and disabled has grown dramatically. The introduction of laparoscopic surgery is moving forward quickly. Our training programs for medical students and residents are also expanding quickly. We literally cannot wait to open this great dream of a hospital which all of you have helped make a reality.

 

Blessings,