St Luke Catholic Hospital – Ethiopia
St. Luke Catholic Hospital, CUAMM Doctors with Africa – Wolisso, Ethiopia
The St. Luke Catholic Hospital in Wolisso, Ethiopia, has been providing medical care and support to the population in the South West Shoa zone since 2001 with the help and support of CUAMM – Doctors with Africa. The hospital offers general medicinal services such as ophthalmology, orthopaedics, paediatrics, neonatology, general surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology. educates around 30 nurses and midwives every year. They are employed by the hospital or local health centres to allow for continued growth of the health care sector and therefore more coverage for the local population. The hospital relies on donations to keep running as 67% of the patients they treat. These patients cannot afford to pay the medical fees for their treatments. They rely on the hospital to cover those costs.
History
In 2001, the St. Luke Catholic Hospital opened with the support of CUAMM- Doctors with Africa. The Oromia Regional Government and the Ethiopian Catholic Church. In their first year they treated 14’269 patients in the out-patient unit and helped 2’082 patients that were hospitalized. The hospital has grown significantly every year and in 2019 they treated 85’568 patients in the outpatient unit. 15’468 hospitalized patients, 4’429 babies were delivered and 3’822 major surgeries were performed. Since 2001, the St. Joseph Catholic Hospital’s college has trained 720 students of which 152 midwives and 568 nurses.
In 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions that were set in place to avoid further spread. The hospital lost 25% of its patients due to the decrease in access to the hospital. Unfortunately, this also meant a decrease in revenue as the fees from treating patients decreased but the fixed costs of salaries remained the same. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the government was also stretched in terms of resources and therefore could no longer guarantee their contribution to the St. Luke Catholic Hospital. In the beginning of 2020, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia also decided to increase the salaries of civil servants, which was putting pressure on the medical staff to go work in public hospitals. In order to not lose their important medical staff, the St. Luke Catholic Hospital raised the salaries for their staff and started a new system of incentives to guarantee the high quality of care they had been upholding since they opened.
Mission
The mission of the St. Luke Catholic Hospital in Wolisso, Ethiopia, is to provide for quality care to the people of the South West Shoa Zone, guaranteeing access to medical care for the most poor and needy. In order to fulfil this objective, it has always kept user fees for the more vulnerable part of the population, mainly women and children, very low and whenever necessary totally free for those who were unable to pay.
With the support of CUAMM – Doctors with Africa and the Ethiopian Church, the St. Luke Catholic Hospital has been able to provide healthcare services and treatments for approximately 100’000 people as well as train 30 midwives and nurses per year.
The Project supported by the Caritas Pro Vitae Gradu Charitable Trust
Thanks to our donations for 2020 and 2021 the St. Luke Catholic Hospital in Wolisso was able to cover the loss of income in fees and of their governmental grant, as well as the increase in salary costs and 50% of their orthopaedic surgery patient costs. We helped with keeping the hospital viable during the COVID crisis.