The Friends of St Francis Katete donated towards a project for an oxygen generator, powered by solar panels. It took a while, but now the generator is up and running, saving lives and saving the hospital a lot of time and money. Andrew Cairns reports:

“After two and half years of fund raising by the Friends of St Francis Katete, for equipment acquisition and installation, the hospital now has a fully functioning Oxygen Plant that during the day is fully powered by Solar. It was so impressive to visit the hospital in November/December 2021 and to see that all the plans, so careful in their making, have all come together.
The oxygen plant was acquired through Mulilo Gases (Zambia) Ltd and purchased through Inmatec of Germany.
The solar power plant was designed, engineered, supplied and installed by YouGo Ltd based in Lusaka.
Muntanga Munkombwe was the main Independent consultant who during the whole process has been invaluable to the solar project. His work has been exemplary.

At last, the hospital will no longer have to reply upon to a round trip to Kafue of just less than 1,100 kms to fill oxygen cylinders. The hospital is now providing oxygen to other medical institutions from Nyimba to Lundazi. It has already saved many lives.
As the oxygen plant, for its operation during the day, has been using solar power alone, the hospital’s carbon footprint has been reduced by 2.25 tons over the last 3 weeks (to 27th December 2021).

Due to financial constraints in the solar plant’s initial installation, we are now trying to raise more funds to acquire more batteries for extended backup use. It is hoped that the once the additional batteries are connected, there will sufficient capacity to power the oxygen plant, all four theatres, ICU, SCBU, labour wards and the children’s ward for up to 5 hours in emergencies. For the remainder of the night, we will have to rely on power from ZESCO or diesel gensets that are ailing having had them serve for more than 20 years.

One the of the big plusses in the way the solar system has been set up is that as funding allows, we will be able to add more PV panels, inverters, batteries etc. The long-term dream would be for the hospital to be energy self-sufficient.

If you would like to donate towards this project or to other work at the hospital, please click here.

If you would like to know more about the hospital and its work in improving the health and welfare of the Zambian people, please contact andrew.cairns[at]@fosfkct.org.uk.
(The above email address is written in a way to avoid spam. Please replace [at] by the usual @.)

Sunday, 28th November 2021 from 2 till 4 pm: due to Covid partners meet again via Zoom.  In this meeting, where Zambian, UK and European partners are present, major issues will be addressed in the field of fundraising opportunities, projects on hand, possible future projects, but above all: how can partners join forces to be more effective. Click here to download the notes of the meeting.

Happier times – when partners could meet in person.

Informal discussion at the partners’ meeting in Scotland

And this is how it was during the last Zoom meeting….

‘Minga is our sister hospital’ – this is how Dr Banda reacted when asked to assist in a major project for Minga Hospital.
The Dutch charity, Friends of Minga, is going to  be liquidated shortly and has sought the cooperation of the St Francis Hospital Medical Support Group (also in the Netherlands) to realise its final project: the renovation of Male Ward at the urgent request of Sr Asperanza of Minga Hospital.
Now that Dr Banda has agreed to St Francis’ being Project Owner on behalf of Minga, a lot of practical problems are solved. The project will be overseen by the experienced SFH Project Manager, Mr Chungu Mutale, and also project reports and finances are dealt with by SFH management.
Sr Asperanza is extremely happy with this urgently needed renovation and also the people of Minga have shown their gratitude by offering eggs, flour and other foodstuffs to the hospital.

The work is done by the Zambian contractor Top Firm.

President of the Republic of Zambia, Dr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu praised St. Francis Hospital for its positive contribution to delivery of health services in Zambia. The President said the hospital has been attending to patients not only in Eastern Province but also receives patients from outside the Province and also from the neighbouring country Mozambique.
‘The hospital had been a pride of the nation for the past 73 years with the uniqueness in the provisions of the health care to the most vulnerable members of the community’.

The President said this during the Silver Jubilee celebration of the establishment of the Anglican Diocese of Eastern Zambia and the commissioning of Bishop John Osmers House at St. Paul’s Church in Chipata on the 25th April,2021. The President visited the stands where the healing and social ministries of the Church were displayed before attending the Eucharistic mass. The head of state attended Eucharistic mass at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Chipata where he commissioned the Bishop John Osmers House.

Bishop Osmers, who died 16 june 2021, was able to witness the commissioning of the Diocesan Centre, the ‘Bishop John Osmers House’ by President Edgar Lungu and gave a speech which proved to be his farewell to the Diocese, in front of people from all around Eastern Province, other parts of the country and Malawi.

This news is an item in the St Francis Hospital April/June Bulletin, which you can download here.

Beginning of June 2021 Mr Chungu Mutale, project manager of St Francis’ Hospital sent in his final report on the MSG project ‘Renovation/rebuilding of the Physiotherapy Block’.
The Zambia contractor, Top Firm, did an excellent job. The project was finished well within time and budget. The close cooperation between the project manager of St Francis Hospital, Top Firm (Zambia), MSG and Wild Geese (Netherlands) has yielded this wonderful result as shown in the photographs below. The only thing left to be done is cleaning and clearing the building site.

exercise room

Interior 1

Interior 2