Local Partner: Haramaya Health Center/Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital
Program Director: Professor Augustin Sesay
Area Served: Eastern Ethiopia
Program Goal: To provide health care services to the people living in and near the village of Baite where there is high unemployment – 75 percent to 80 percent – and many of the poor work as peasant farmers to sustain themselves. Haramaya Health Center serves a community of 200,000 individuals. In the hospital, the greatest morbidity problems relate to upper respiratory, urinary tract, or pneumonia. Most mortality is related to pneumonia, intestinal problems, and septicemia which the hospital is striving to address.
Program Service provided: Haramaya Health Center provides primary medical treatment both inpatient care and outpatient care, and has obstetrics services.
Number of program Beneficiaries:
Current Need: While the clinic is small, it is organized to handle a large number of patients and emphasis is placed on prevention. However, there is a constant shortage of supplies and equipment and serious cases must be referred to other facilities. Needed items include ultrasound equipment, surgical operating room lights and a surgical table. At the hospital, the needs are described as enormous and urgent. The need at the hospital is primarily a lack of supplies and modern equipment, combined with a shortage of doctors.
Program Summary: The focus of the hospital is general medicine. The hospital’s strength is that it is a regional hospital for the eastern part of the country which became a teaching hospital in 2011. It also offers specialties that small clinics cannot offer.
