What's new at G2?
Guinebor II Hospital (G2) in Chad is a constant hub of activity. Your support means that things are always changing and improving at the hospital, so we sat down with BMS World Mission pharmacist Claire Bedford to find out what’s been going on at G2 this year.
More room to help
One of the biggest projects at G2 this year involved building a brand-new triage room and expanding the emergency room. This is actually the third time the emergency room has been redone, and for a hospital with an average of 1,392 outpatients each month, the update was desperately needed. Excitingly, the capacity of the emergency room has more than doubled, going from five beds to 13! “It’s made life a lot easier for patients and staff in terms of space,” says Claire. “We used to worry about overcrowding and the spread of infection, but that’s now not the case.” And with the area around G2 growing and expanding all the time – Guinebor was once a village and is now practically a suburb of N’Djamena, Chad’s capital – this growth can only be good for communities in need.
Hard at work behind the scenes
The staff at G2 are literally lifesavers. And while it’s amazing to hear stories of life-changing surgery or babies born safely, it’s also important to honour those working behind the scenes to keep the hospital running smoothly. People like BMS worker Lucia Bastos, who joined the team at G2 in January. She’s the Projects and Partnerships Officer, and she’s spent the year using her business skills to assess G2’s finances and help make sure things are working well so the frontline staff can treat patients as efficiently as possible!
“It’s coming up to 14 years since the hospital opened, and it's definitely going through the teenage growing pains into the next phase of its existence,” says Claire. “And so Lucia has come just at the right time to help us with that transition.” We look forward to seeing how Lucia’s work will help the hospital keep growing in the future!
Want to help the maternity staff at G2 this Christmas? Read on…
While there is so much good news coming out of G2, the news on a national level is incredibly concerning. Chad has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the world. So many mothers desperately want to make sure their children are safe, but so many don’t have access to quality healthcare.
Could you give to the BMS Special delivery appeal today, and save babies’ lives?
Hope for the rolling drugs fund
For those of you who’ve kept up with Claire’s prayer letters you’ll know about her hopes for a three-month rolling drugs fund at G2’s pharmacy. The idea is simple: an exclusive fund to go back into the pharmacy so they can bulk order crucial medication every three months, rather than every week. The idea may have been ambitious at first – they’ve sadly not been able to sustain the fund over a three-month period – but Claire is hopeful that the fund will make a big difference for the pharmacy staff in the future. “The whole premise behind it was making it so we weren’t without things because we didn't have the funds to buy them,” explains Claire. And now we have got the funds to buy stuff, we just can't do it three months at a time.” The current system is more labour intensive than Claire would like, so she’s hoping that eventually the team will be able to save enough money to go back to a three-month system.
A new venture for G2
The staff at G2 are eagerly looking forward to 2025, when they’ll be welcoming some new team members. Ingrid and Roger Hamlet, along with their two children, Mark and Joel, will be travelling to Chad in the new year where they will set up a new Prosthetics and Orthotics Department. It’s a really exciting new venture for the hospital, and one that will serve the surrounding community well. If you’d like to support the Hamlet family in their exciting move to G2, then visit their profile to find out more.
Author: Laura Durrant
Published: 14/11/2024
How to help in Chad
Your support for Claire and the team in Chad is crucial. Will you keep making vital healthcare possible by supporting the BMS Special delivery appeal today? You can help midwives and nurses bring life safely into the world, and provide life-saving medication for women at risk after giving birth. Please, if you’re able, give today.
