Murambinda is a Mission hospital in the Buhera district of Zimbabwe about 3 hours drive on a good road south and east of Harare. The hospital has 120 beds and serves a population about 280,000. Murambinda hospital is owned by The Little Company of Mary and is a member of ZACH (The Zimbabwe Association of Church Related Hospitals).

Read About Buhera district

Murambinda Mission Hospital was the first site to implement a programme for the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in rural Zimbabwe and the results were published in the BMJ this year. The study was done in conjunction with the University of Bordeaux and others, and it is of great credit to the hospital.

Since 2002, TB Alert has been supporting the hospital and believes that it is vital that we continue to support the tremendous commitment and hard work of the staff, and ensure that the TB service is kept going in difficult times.

“Naturally as in any poor region there are many difficulties related to TB, the greatest being that of poverty and rampant inflation.  Patients will often default treatment if they cannot afford the bus fare to the treatment centre in Buhera. The Ministry of Health does have a travel warrant system for TB patients but often bus companies do not accept these as the delays in payment are so long! The current collapse in the economic situation, compounded by drought in Zimbabwe has led to a serious food deficit and the result [is] that people in general and the poor in particular are increasingly hungry and suffering from poor nutrition, and thus it will be expected that there will be an upsurge in the already rapidly rising prevalence rate of TB.”   
Dr Monica Glenshaw, Murambinda Mission Hospital

Staff and patient pictures

Read a letter from a nurse at Murambinda Hospital (pdf file)

Read a letter from a friend of Murambinda, The Very Reverend Dr John Miller (pdf file)

Read about why patients might default from treatment and what the hospital is doing about it.