On Monday afternoon we met with the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital administrative board and staff.  It was a very profitable meeting regarding the state of the hospital and their plans to move forward in the future.  Following the meeting we took a thorough tour of the hospital.  This 350-bed hospital served 129,343 outpatients and 63,950 inpatients last year.  They have 18 doctors (5 of which are specialists), 40 paramedical staff, and 143 nurses. 

It is a hospital for the common people.  It is known by the Swazis as the “Nazarene” hospital (one of only three in the entire Church of the Nazarene).  It costs $3 per person to be seen, treated, and if need be, admitted.   The price jumps to $17 if you need a general surgery (including anesthesia).  They deliver an average of 22 babies per day (about one per hour), the highest hospital delivery rate in the country, and yet until a month ago they had no sonogram.  The supplies of the hospital are inadequate to meet the demand of a population threatened by the HIV/AIDS crisis and multiple pandemics such as tuberculosis and malaria.  Everything from bedding to toilet paper is provided by the patients.  Though they are woefully under-staffed and under-resourced, the hospital staff stay faithful to their mission of showing the love of Christ and bringing healing in His Name.

Today Swaziland has the highest reported infection rate of HIV/AIDS in the world.  I asked the hematologist to tell me about how the pandemic has affected the hospital’s work.  He said, “I came to work here in 1987.  At that time 1 in every 50 people we treated had HIV.  In fact, the cases were so rare that we often checked a patient two or three times before confirming their status.  Today it is just the opposite.  Now around 1 in every 50 do not have HIV.”  That in just twenty years time!

As I walked through the hospital there were times it was all I could do to choke back the tears.  The young mother lying on a bed who lost her baby just an hour before;  the 10-year-old boy in the emergency room whose toes had been burned off in a fire; make-shift IV’s in thin arms; families of patients lying on pallets on the floor; patients sleeping on the floor.  The only private rooms were reserved for those with high infection risks.  Most patients were in wards, large open rooms like military barracks, with dozens of beds.  It was all heartbreaking to see.  And yet, I also felt a sense of rightness, because I knew this is exactly where Jesus would be.  Jesus gets “into the river,” neck deep into the suffering and pain of hurting people.  I was reminded of that because everywhere I looked, I saw Jesus.  I saw Jesus in the tenderness of the caregivers; in the quiet strength of the doctors; in the gaunt bodies of the dying; in the hollow eyes of children.  I saw Jesus there.  And if this is where Jesus is, this is where His people should be too.

It is my hope that BFC can be a catalyst for support and continued improvement for the hospital.  We can help provide supplies and equipment through our many health care contacts.  We can help through training in hospital management and infrastructure issues such as ongoing plans for maintenance.  We can help by sending some of our plethora of doctors and nurses for short-term medical mission projects.   We cannot solve all of the challenges facing the hospital, but we can do something.  Maybe that’s all Jesus is asking us to do.