This article appeared in the POST-BULLETIN, Rochester, MN, on November 11, 1997.by Denis MzembeHOSPITALS IN MALAWI COME UP SHORT WHEN SERVING PATIENTS
Denis Mzembe recently finished a fellowship at the World Press Institute. Mzembe spent two days visiting Rochester and spent time in Goodhue.
Traveling through the United States you hear little of the southern African state of Malawi. Many mistake it for Hawaii. A few think it should be Mali and yet a few know Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique--Malawi's neighboring states in southern Africa.
You feel depressed thinking you are not worth caring about. And you feel guilty thinking you have not done enough to be known for.
Patty Hahn Carlson of St. Paul knows Malawi for a noble cause. She had been lending a hand to a community that has been trying to help itself.
A health care project in Rumphi District of northern Malawi would not have been worth its name if Patty, with the backing of her church, Unity Church Unitarian, was not involved. For five years she has been assisting a village community in northern Malawi manage its health center.
Nchena-chena is one of the villages in Rumphi and other parts of Malawi that suffered untold hardships during a 30-year dictatorship.
There was no clinic to serve a community of more than 50,000 people and it was not uncommon to hear of patients dying on their beloved ones' backs on their way to a hospital many miles away.
In the late '80s, however, American-trained Trywell Nyirongo led the community in constructing a health center that today not only caters to the Nchena-chena community but also to people from surrounding areas.
It has not been an easy road since the clinic started operating in l985. Drugs and other hospital facilities have not been easy to come by.
But having trained in America in the l960s as a medical practitioner among a caring people, Trywell had friends who were willing to lend a helping hand and bail him and the community out of their predicament.
Says Patty, "I was business manager at the church and Trywell at first wrote to ask if we could assist him in exporting a Land Rover from the United States which had been donated to the clinic in Malawi. Trywell was very thankful afterward. He then outlined the difficulties that were being faced in running the clinic."
It turned out to be drugs mostly. She then contacted a doctor in Minnesota for drugs that could be sent to Nchena-chena. The doctor agreed and soon drugs started flowing to the small African village in l992.
But later it proved to be an expensive venture sending drugs to Malawi because of soaring freight charges.
One would wonder why Patty took so much interest in assisting a community that even the regime in Malawi never cared about for 30 years.
"I spent three months in Africa in l983 and I saw what the people were up against. I did not go to Malawi then but when Trywell wrote me about the problems people were facing, I understood and could clearly visualize in my mind what it was like," she says.
Today back in St. Paul, Patty convenes what is called the "Malawi Table," at Unity Church Unitarian once every month, "and I relate the problems people are facing in Africa, that there aren't many physicians and that even if there were some, drugs are hard to get and patients die of diseases that could well be treated in normal circumstances."
In April, Patty visited the Nchena-chena community.
"I got to the school (Nkhomboli), the clinic and the church. I didn't go everywhere, but I was overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the area, so untouched, so tranquil and delightful. There are almost no cars, no telephones and almost all homes are hidden by vegetation," she said.
She values the closeness of the people, their families and the community and how, in spite of the difficulties, they are able to help each other, something that in her eyes makes them a very rich people.
"Those who do not know anything about Africans here think they are people who just sit and wait for handouts. They see negative things because of what the press tells them. They (Africans) are a people full of hope, are hard-working but lack resources," Patty observes.
Kasambala Clinic was built in late l980 to cater to a population of about 50,000. It has a maternity ward apart from an outpatient department that normally treats malaria, pneumonia, sores and dental problems, among other ailments, as the most common diseases.
The clinic still refers major ailments to a bigger hospital located about 40 miles from Nchena-chena.
Trywell and the community in Nchena-chena have always been full of thanks and gratitude to Patty and the Unity Church.
"The children and the mothers at the medical center are very thankful to you for visiting us. They now realize that their medical center has truly devoted friends thousands of miles away.
"It is a great challenge for us and the people of Nchena-chena to safeguard our reputation," Trywell wrote Patty after she had visited the clinic.
At least there is a clinic in Nchena-chena today. There are also two primary schools in the area--Nkhomboli and Lura.
But as Patty may have experienced, some pupils learn under a tree for lack of classes while in the available classes they still sit on the floor in classrooms. Teachers live in grass-thatched houses that leak when it rains.
However, Patty and her church are not alone in trying to help the underprivileged in Malawi. Indianapolis minister Vic Kubik has joined the effort.
Kubik is known for his humanitarian work in disaster areas such as Chernobyl but has now also chosen to support yet another clinic called Malakia Clinic in Lilongwe, Malawi's capital.
Patty and Kubik planned to ship a container of drugs and other relief items to Malawi by the end of October. The items will be distributed between the two health facilities.
The two are relying on donations to make the relief effort successful, said Kubik.
(Patty and Vic can be contacted at the following e-mail addresses: PattyHC@AOL.COM and Kubik@kubik.org)
Visiting the United States becomes easier and you feel at home after discovering there are people who care for your country, least known to many.