This is friar Giancarlo Zamengo, and I am the General Director of the ‘Messenger of Saint Anthony’. I am currently visiting Burkina Faso, and I am now at the mission of my brothers in Sabou, in a rural area 100 kilometres away from the capital Ouagadougou. I am here for St. Anthony’s Charities June 13 Project. What we want to do is build a fully functioning emergency care facility in Sabou, with medical supplies for diagnosis and emergency operations.
The project is the second step in a previous project: in 2005, thanks to support from St. Anthony’s world-wide family, the friars founded the St. Maximilian Kolbe Medical Centre, which remains to this day the only healthcare facility within a radius of 80 kilometres for a population of 140,000 people.
Over the years, the medical centre has saved thousands of lives, but it lacks an emergency care facility equipped for emergency operations. Many childbirths are at risk, as well as endemic diseases with complications (like malaria and meningitis), bone fractures, burns, and, most of all, road accident victims. From the medical centre leaves the only paved road which leads to the Ivory Coast. Overcrowded busses and run-down, overloaded trucks whizz along the road: every accident is a disaster, for there are no ambulances and no diagnostic medical equipment.
The construction of an emergency health care facility will improve the services of the medical centre and enable us to save thousands of lives. The poor farmers who live in the area will no longer be forced to reach the capital to get x-rays or an ultrasound. The majority of people do not have any means of transport, and cannot afford to pay health services. This new emergency health care facility will give them the possibility of receiving specialist tests, prompt diagnoses, and emergency operations.
A waiting room will be built, together with a ward with diagnostic medical equipment and intensive care, as well as an operating room. The project includes the purchase of much needed machines, basic equipment, and the training of specialized personnel.