Tuesday Talk - October 23, 2018

Building a Healthcare System on Idjwi Island in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Speaker: David Evans, Professor Emeritus and Special Lecturer of Sociomedical Sciences (in Pediatrics), Columbia University Medical Center, and EPIC member

David Evans shared his experiences working with Dr. Jacques Sebisaho and his wife, Mimy Mudekereza to build a hospital and healthcare system on a large island in Lake Kivu in the eastern DRC.

The Amani Global Works hospital has 75,000 patient visits a year, is training community health care workers and partnering with existing health outposts to create an integrated health care system. They also conduct a nutrition program for children under age six, carry out deworming campaigns, and partnered with the DRC Ministry of Health to plan the response to the recent Ebola outbreak. Dr. Evans showed photographs of the islander's lives and of healthcare in the hospital and community.