MERCY MISSION
An Edinburgh charity is making treatment for half a million people in Malawi possible – against the odds
VAMPIRE hunters who murdered a patient are just one of the problems being juggled by Mulanje Mission Hospital medical director Ruth Shakespeare today.
The Daily Record travelled to the remote health campus in Malawi on the same day several aid agencies withdrew volunteers from the area over safety fears.
Local mobs terrified by rumours of shape-shifting “bloodsuckers” had slaughtered six people in the surrounding villages they suspected of preying on their veins.
But it would clearly take more than vampires to faze Church of Scotland missionary Ruth, who interrupts our conversation to cheerily deal with a steady flow of hospital workers who arrive at her office with various issues.
One volunteer is dispatched to change the engine in a car in exchange for treatment for his son’s injured leg. Another calls in to drop off a newly delivered ultrasound transducer which she deposits with glee on a desk brimming with papers and other medical equipment.
In a matter-of-fact tone, Ruth explained: “One of our patients who we had sent home with a catheter was murdered along with his brother and his brother’s wife. There was also a riot on the hospital campus after a group of villagers brought in a child that they believed had its blood sucked.
“It was a perfectly healthy child, we even took some haemoglobin tests to show we were taking any health concerns seriously, but it wasn’t enough and things got a bit out of control.
“Unfortunately you are dealing with pre-enlightenment attitudes in many parts of the community.
“Malawi is not like other places, even within Africa. People believe in witchcraft and there is nothing that you can do about that.”
The modest 204-bed hospital is one of the only sources of professional medical care in an area with more than 550,000 inhabitants, with the immediate catchment covering 80,000 people in 72 surrounding villages.
And yet through its four departments – a general male ward, general female ward, paediatric ward, and a maternity wing – it appears to deliver care to a mind-boggling number of people, despite rarely having more than five doctors.
Ruth said: “To put the challenges that we face here in perspective, in the UK to service an area with a population of 700,000 people you could have something in the region of 1800 doctors.
“In Mulanje we might have three doctors, or sometimes if we are lucky four or five, to do that same job.
“So we have to work very hard to try to deliver a service to people who are living with often extreme levels of poverty and hunger.”
Annie Kaseka, 39, a registered nurse of 14 years’ experience, runs the palliative care unit at the hospital – set up in part thanks to Scottish donations through Edinburgh-based Christian medical charity EMMS International.
Today one of Annie’s first patients is Violet, 37, who first realised she was ill when black spots began forming on her legs.
The mum of three from Mozambique is HIV positive and has Kaposi’s sarcoma – a strain of skin cancer associated with HIV infection.
She appears so frail it is difficult to imagine how she managed the three-hour round trip – by overcrowded minibus and motorbike taxi – for chemotherapy, antiretroviral drugs and pain relief.
As a foreign national, she has to pay 4000 kwacha towards the cost of her drugs, and more for the cost of travel each week.
When she was healthy, Violet worked at a roadside stall selling fruit but she is struggling to support herself when she needs it the most.
Annie said: “Violet will need to travel to us each week initially for treatment with oral chemotherapy drugs, it then moves to
We have drugs at the moment but the danger is we run out ANNIE KASEKA