About Tenwek Hospital

About Tenwek Hospital

Tenwek Hospital is one of the largest mission hospitals in Africa, and is committed to compassionate health care, spiritual ministry, and training for service.

The 300-bed hospital is located 150 miles west of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, in the Rift Valley province. It provides primary health care to 600,000 people within a 30 kilometer radius.  Tenwek serves as a surgical referral center for an area populated by nearly 8.5 million people. About 5,000 surgeries are performed in its five operating rooms, and an additional 1,000 endoscopies are performed annually at Tenwek.  Tenwek sees 11,000 inpatients and 85,000 outpatients annually.  

             Why is Tenwek starting 
           a heart surgery program?

Seventy-five  years ago, rheumatic heart disease was the leading cause of death of children between 5 and 20 years of age in the United States.  Rheumatic heart disease affected my father's family in a big way.  

Photo taken in 1938 of three of my uncles-
Glen, Clyde and Russell. Between 1940 and 1954,
all three died from rheumatic heart disease.

With the introduction of antibiotics and improved primary medical care, this disease has been nearly eradicated in the United States.  However, it remains a world health problem, particularly in sub-Sahara Africa, where it has the highest prevalence:  5-7 cases per 1,000 population (see the World Health Organization chart below).

Primary treatment, with education and antibiotics, is beginning to take hold in developing countries.  However, in Kenya, thousands of patients, both children and young adults, are already afflicted.  They have serious cardiac problems caused by repeated infection and inflammation, which causes the thickening and destruction of cardiac valves and the pericardial sack that covers the heart.  In 2007, Brown University and Vanderbilt University began sending cardiac teams to perform valve replacement surgery and other treatments for patients, from the ages of 7 to 50, afflicted with rheumatic and other heart diseases. More recently, teams from Ocala Heart Center, in Florida, led by John Galat, a cardiac surgeon, have come to do cardiac operations and teach. 

Mitral Valve Replacement Operation
at Tenwek Hospital

Doctors at Tenwek have a vision to develop a heart program here that can provided treatment for thousands of patients with heart disease and also serve as a training center for doctors, nurses, and other specialists.

I've got to say goodbye for now.  We have a big day tomorrow; our first case is a mitral valve replacement for a  40-year-old female with severe mitral stenosis.  

In my next posting, I will tell you about her operation and the challenges of pulling together supplies for such operations.