2015 STATISTICS

            Our hospital continues to expand physically and with improved facilities to accommodate the ever increasing patient load.  Our OUT Patient visits increased in 2015 by 45% to 8,575 and our IN
 Patient visits increased by 55% to 7,153. The number of patients treated at the  HIV center (CTC) increased by 10% to 2,401 who visit us monthly or bi-monthly for ARV medications and evaluations. 145 are children under 15yrs of age.

            The exciting news since my last blog update is the addition of a new doctor on March 1. Even more promising is the news that his home village is just a few kilometers from the hospital where his father still lives. This means there is a good chance of keeping him with us for an extended period. Dr Lazaro is 30 yrs old and recently married a local girl who is also well educated. I am told he is a hard worker and a fast learner. He is being trained by our older doctor and is now averaging 15 surgeries per month. Our major surgeries increased by 36% last year to 328 and our minor surgeries increased by 51% to 1,250. Of these major surgeries about 45% were Caesarian sections and 10% Hysterectomies.

             Other exciting news was the assessment by the Ministry of Health of Tanzania last November. They increased our rating from Two Star to THREE STAR which places us as the best hospital in a wide area. This is a five star rating system and equivalent or better than many district hospitals. We are a 170 bed hospital that was elevated from a 40 bed health care facility in 2009, so we have added a lot of equipment, buildings and staff in the last 7 years. We also opened our CTC Center in 2009 for HIV treatment and unfortunately it continues to expand yearly. Our HIV positive patients averaged 14% which is about the same as in 2014. This is about the highest rate in the country.

            We had 94 patients die last year and 73% (69) were children under 5 yrs of age; this is compared to 108 total deaths in 2014 and 72 of children (67%). Early 2016 was a bad time for cholera cases in our area. We had about 50 cases and several of them were in the Kowak Girls Secondary School adjacent to the mission which houses 410 students and 25 teachers. Fortunately there were no deaths, which is very unusual.

            Last year I gave out over 250 mosquito nets to mothers of young children in the surrounding village, thanks to over $1,500 in donations from friends and churches. This year I have decided to give nets to the mothers of newborns at the Kowak hospital which had 615 normal deliveries in 2015 as compared to 565 deliveries in 2014; a 9% increase. This month we are averaging 2 deliveries per day and I have given out 31 nets in the first two weeks of this program which includes a photo and rosary for each mother. One of the

first mothers had triplets so she got 4 nets, since she already had 7 children at home. The next week we had twins as shown above.  

            One surprising statistic is the drop in X rays and Ultra sounds. We had 1,805 X-rays for a 23% drop in that area and 1,264 Ultra sounds for a drop of 37% in that area. Our blood transfusions increased by 35% to 886 in 2015. We also had 133 EKG’s during 2015.
            We were blessed recently with a message that we will be given a $10,000 donation next year to assist in the purchase of a lorry for transporting drugs from our government source in Mwanza. This is badly needed.  Our other main problems are a shortage of anesthetics in both Tanzania and Kenya and a lack of medical Oxygen in Tanzania. We did receive $21,000 this year from Maryknoll Fathers to add tile and ceiling boards in most of the hospital. That work was just completed this week. It looks great.
          Our weekly Outreach program reached 4,480 children under 5 yrs, in 2015. 2,240 of them were immunized. Also 1,850 pregnant mothers were immunized.  A national program for controlling HIV called TOHARA paid for the circumcision of 1,425 men and boys at Kowak in 2015.