Zimbabwe
GHM in Zimbabwe
In 2008 Global Health Ministries (GHM), in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), sent its first container of medical supplies and equipment to Zimbabwe. This was in response to an urgent plea for help by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ). Rapid economic decline across the country meant the cost of bread and corn skyrocketed and people couldn’t feed their families. Shelves at the four Lutheran hospitals were empty, patients went without basic care, a cholera epidemic was spreading, and none of the Lutheran Hospitals had running water. GHM and the ELCA have continued to partner with shipments of medical supplies and equipment every year since.
Conditions in Zimbabwe have continued to deteriorate over the last dozen years, making those shipments more critical than ever. Once considered the “breadbasket of Africa,” Zimbabwe today is among the most food-insecure countries in the world. Malnutrition is compromising health, particularly for women and children. Doctors across the country, including in the capital city of Harare, have been forced to work without basic supplies, and medicine stocks at public hospitals have been depleted. Our partner mission hospitals have been living with these realities for decades, but soaring Inflation and scarcity in Zimbabwe have made purchasing supplies and medicine in-country even more out of reach.
Data from WHO, and The World Bank
Meet a Happy Mom
She has just been given the gift of a GHM Newborn Kit to help her welcome her baby into the world. She’s excited, even though it can be scary to be pregnant in Zimbabwe. High unemployment has sent many men out of their villages in search of work, leaving their wives home alone for months at a time. Soaring inflation makes food unaffordable, and drought was followed by a devastating cyclone, which recently caused crops to fail last year - few people have enough to eat. Maternal mortality rates in Zimbabwe are heartbreakingly high. GHM Newborn Kits are offered as gifts to women who come to one of the four Lutheran hospitals or Burure Clinic during their pregnancy. Prenatal care, quite simply, saves lives. The Lutheran hospital compounds also offer safe places, complete with nutritious meals, where women can wait until they give birth.
