Projects, Programs & Initiatives

Our primary health clinic in Ngodzi needs funding for 2010, some of the services offered to patients are eye sight and hearing tests, blood pressure tests, physicals, minor surgery, fractures clinic, vaccinations and treatment and management of infectious diseases. All treatments are free of charge to patients.

Medication for a patient costs on average $1.50, but seeing approximately 7,000 patients a month those costs for just the medication can add up. We have 35 trained medical staff working within the clinic and the general overheads to cover in addition to this.

Operating Costs = $250,000 per annum

2. Community Outreach:

To achieve significant penetration in our rural areas, funding is required for LM to expand its HIV/AIDS intervention in conjunction with its primary health services that are being provided in the weekly outreach clinics into the neighbouring villages. The result of these mobile clinics will increase our patient load to over 8,000 per month.

Operating Costs = $30,000 per annum

3. Rosetree Maternity Clinic – Ngodzi

Historically women have not come to clinics for delivery or any other of the maternity services but have given birth behind their family dwelling with the aid of a traditional birthing attendant who has little or no medical training.

The maternal mortality rate in Malawi is so high, one of the worst in the world, that these services are vital to ensure babies are not motherless from birth.

Operating costs per annum $65,000

First baby born at Rosetree Clinic

4. Medical Equipment:

In order to perform the normal services of a medical clinic we need equipment for our staff to use, especially for our HIV/AIDS and Maternity Clinics. Some of the key items we currently need are:

Lab tech using our new microscope

5. Leadership Development / Self Sustainment:

There are three areas in which we promote leadership development and training; our senior leadership team, our patient care staff and our administrative teams. By ensuring the training needs of these three sectors are met, we will enable our teams to continually develop our medical programs, impacting the local community further.

a) Our senior leadership team provide the medical and program expertise and direction necessary to carry out our programs to successful outcomes. Dr. Chris Brooks, President, Pat Laforet, V. P Malawi Operations, Dr. Haldon Njiko, Medical Director and Gift Dulla, Program Director are responsible for the training programs for our employees, ensuring that our professional staff remain accredited, and for their own continued professional development. Cost = $25,000 per annum

b) In order to maintain their medical registrations, our medical staff are required to earn 50 points of professional development per year. The approximate cost of this training is $500 per person for a total of$10,000 for our entire team.

c) Our administration staff require skills training to manage the tremendous volume of patients on a daily basis and maintain accurate patient records, logistics of mobile clinics and medicine inventories. The costs vary for training in medical administration from as little as $250 an administrator can attend a basic course.

Malawi senior staff during leadership training

6. Medicines:

Approximately 50% of our medicines are donated from Health Partners International in Canada or purchased from IDA through various sponsorships; There is still the need for additional medicines and clinical operating supplies to be purchased locally. To ensure the effective treatment routines can be maintained with our increased patient load, these items can be purchased very economically locally. Cost = $1.50 per patient ($25,000 per monthly order)

7. Medicine Shipping Costs:

The last 10 kilometres are the biggest challenge for any NGO for transporting their supplies to where they are needed. Though we are fortunate enough to have great partnerships with HPIC and IDA we still need to physically get the medicines to Malawi on a timely basis i.e. via air versus sea.

We normally send one shipment per quarter

Cost of shipment $7,500

Although Lifeline Malawi (LM) has successfully expanded to Kasese with the provision of health care & maternity services, we do not have an adequate housing for our medical staff.

In 2010 we aim to build two duplexes for our staff

Construction Cost = $57,500.00 per duplex

2. Kasese Perimeter Wall:

As part of our continued development of our second site we need to build our perimeter wall around the complex, ensuring everything is secure, especially from the local goats!

In 2010 we aim to start building the wall

Construction Cost - $10,000

3. Ngodzi Community Housing – Phase 2:

To provide culturally acceptable housing to the non-professional, LM staff working in our rural clinic.

These additional staff have been hired for our expanded Community Outreach Program & to support the provision of maternity services. Since there are few quality housing alternatives available, we are providing these 2 or 3 bedroom 40 sq meter homes, located approx 1 km from the Clinic. This community includes access to electricity and clean water.

In 2011 we aim to build two community houses

Construction Cost = $20,000 per home,

4. Refurbish Current (Ngodzi) Site:

To ensure that LM is able to sustain its provision of primary health care and HIV/AIDS intervention to the current patients (approx 7,500 per month), the infrastructure within the Ngodzi Complex must be maintained on a routine basis. Refurbishment is continually required on the Mission House (which provides accommodations for rotational doctors and visiting short term mission teams) and the original clinic.

Cost = $10,000

Van for transporting staff and volunteers

Glimpse of Lifeline’s fleet

Ngodzi Clinic’s ambulance