HPIC at Work

Medicines from Canada keep Zimbabwe hospital open

Howard Hospital is located in a country where women have the lowest life expectancy in the world, 83 per cent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, and many people are hungry and demoralized.

In 2008, which Dr. Paul Thistle described as a "year of living dangerously," it was a miracle that the hospital located in rural Zimbabwe remained open. "At Howard Hospital, we don't believe in miracles, we live by them," he said in a presentation to Health Partners International of Canada and several partner organizations in June. HPIC has been supporting Howard since 1996. More than $4 million in medicine was provided to Howard in 2008 alone.

In the last year about 155,000 people were treated at the general hospital and in the last six months the volume of patients has increased by 30 per cent. "Imagine you had ten hospitals in Montreal and they all closed except one," the chief medical officer of Howard said. "We have to have a lot of magazines in the waiting room," he joked after noting that the hospital sees up to 400 people every day before the "cows come home" at around 6 p.m.

About half the people who walk through the doors have HIV/AIDS. One piece of good news from this part of Zimbabwe is that the rate of HIV/AIDS was 11.1 per cent in early 2009, which is down by more than half compared to 1999 when it was 27 per cent. Howard runs an education and prevention program, which may be helping bring the numbers down. Apart from the large HIV/AIDS clinic, the hospital offers general medicine and general surgery and "just about everything except intensive care," according to Dr. Thistle.

Dr. Thistle, a Canadian from Scarborough, Ontario, has been serving at Howard for almost 15 years now. Currently there are two Zimbabwean doctors to assist him and 45 nurses.

"All our staff sported billion dollar bills in 2008, but their real salary in December was 30 cents a month - less than the price of a cup of coffee," he said. "Johnny Cash once sang, 'If it weren't for hard luck, I'd have no luck at all.' We in Zimbabwe have adopted this as our national anthem."

Despite all the challenges the country and the hospital face, thousands of people rely on the hospital. "Howard is a place of hope and healing. It is easy to become discouraged when looking at things from a global or national level. We work at the community level. We are reviving mothers and fathers, wives and husbands through our services. Breadwinners come in on a stretcher and walk out alive to go back and support their families. Life is a struggle here but it is easier when you are healthy."

"Cure sometimes, comfort always" are words that the staff at Howard live by as they do their utmost to provide health care to the 270,000 people who live in the catchment area and the thousands more who ride the chicken bus from Second Street in Harare for 85 km to get to Howard, which is famous for its long queues and crowded waiting rooms.

"Health Partners International of Canada is the main constant supplier of pharmaceuticals to Howard," Dr. Thistle said. "The drugs donated by HPIC through its partners in the pharmaceutical industry are supporting people in great need. They will survive for a better day and they will have a better day. Today there is a joy on their faces as they receive the life saving and life changing support from Canada."