In partnership with Engineering Ministries International and a team of six physicians with World Harvest Mission who have committed to be the long-term, full-time clinical faculty for the hospital, the Kibuye Hope Project will transform the inadequate and out-dated 80-bed hospital into a 300-bed modern teaching facility where students can learn from and care for patients with unrivaled excellence. This multi-phase plan will roll out over the next twenty years and include new community infrastructure (roads, water, electricity) in addition to hospital buildings (5 ORs, a 20-bed ER, a neonatal ICU, 100-seat lecture hall, a new outpatient department).
Kibuye Hope Hospital is the teaching hospital for the Frank W. Ogden School of Medicine at Hope Africa University, (HAU). The hospital also provides clinical training for students of the university’s school of nursing and ministers to some 40,000 patients each year to its rural community. All of these programs make essential contributions to the fulfillment of Hope Africa University’s purpose to equip young Africans with professional skills and Christian values. They will be prepared to serve a part of the world where trained healthcare professionals are scarce, life expectancies are short and maternal and childhood death rates are among the highest in the world. Graduates of HAU medical and nursing programs come from Burundi, D.R. Congo, Rwanda and seven other African nations. All will have critical roles in ministering to the healthcare needs of their countries for years to come.
Good clinical training is essential for the health sciences. Both the nursing and medicine programs at HAU are growing and six new, American physicians are now in service at Kibuye Hope Hospital to lead this work. They will teach courses at the university but their main roles are clinical training and providing patient care at KHH. These physicians and their families are building homes near the hospital with expectation of serving there for decades. These six physicians bring board-certified skills in family practice, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine-pediatrics, emergency medicine, general surgery and ophthalmology. These developments significantly increase the scope and quality of student training and medical care for the region.
Anticipating these expansions, a Master Plan was developed by Engineering Ministries International for the hospital campus to define growth requirements for the next twenty years. The ability to provide quality patient care is expected to triple from about 100 beds to over 300 beds with added services through the wider scope of medical skills now available. This expansion is important both for healthcare ministry to the community and to accommodate the increased demands for clinical training for the growing number of HAU students in the health sciences. Already work is underway building residences for the physicians, completing a two-story dormitory for 48 more students and connecting a water distribution system to the new well.