Truly a Hard Life

(Submission by Nicolas Cominellis, visiting doctor to CEML Hospital) "A short time ago in the hospital, I was talking with a 35-year old Angolan lady who 10 years earlier lost her left leg to a land mine. Angola was once home to the highest per capita concentration of land mines in the world! During the recent war years, this lady lost 8 of her 10 children to fever and diarrhea. No one knows her own diagnosis for sure because medical care facilities from her district are sparse. Without the support of her husband, who was lost to combat during the civil war, she somehow managed to escape starvation. Then a few days ago this remarkable lady fell, could not get up and was brought to the CEML Hospital with pain in her only remaining right leg. Check out the X-ray below!"

Sadly, similar cases as these are all too common within CEML's rural outreach area of southern Angola. The Hospital is aiming to expand its medical services to meet the great exent of these needs.

A World Class Physician Serving in Angola

The CEML Hospital Medical Director, Dr. Steve Foster, just received a distinguished award from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.  This award, given in evaluation by a consortium of honored physician-peers in Canada, exemplifies one of the highest honors of  the North American medical field.

The Teasdale-Corti Humanitarian Award, acknowledges and celebrates Canadian physicians who, while providing health care or emergency medical services, go beyond the accepted norms of routine practice, which may include exposure to personal risk. The recipient's actions exemplify altruism and integrity, courage and perseverance in the alleviation of human suffering.

Below is the Award biography story of Dr. Foster:

Stephen Foster, MD, FRCSC, has devoted his life to improving health care in Angola.
Even when armoured plates had to be installed under his car, the 2010 Royal College Teasdale-Corti Humanitarian Award winner continued providing high-quality medical treatment in a country ravaged by more than 27 years of civil war.

“Despite the apparent dangers, I’ve had more fun here than I would have had anywhere else,” Dr. Foster said. “The average general surgeon in Canada does five or six different types of operations. I do more than 100 procedures, 1,400 times in any given year.”

Dr. Foster, 60, was born in Brantford, Ont., but spent most his childhood living in Zambia, where his father, Robert Foster, MD, worked as a missionary surgeon. In 1971, the young student had just completed his second year of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., when he decided to spend the summer working at a central Angola clinic.

CEML Hospital - A Closer Look

Allow us to share briefly about CEML (Centro Evangelico de Medicina Do Lubango) Hospital, the place of our new ministry assignment in Angola.

Opening in 2006 in Lubango, the largest city in the southern region of Angola, CEML's immediate catchment population is over 2.5 million people, 50% of whom do not have access to basic healthcare.

The hospital infrastructure consists of 53 bed acute-care facility with a 24 hour emergency ward, full hematology laboratory, digital x-ray facilities and two Operating Room theaters.  A subsequent expansion phase is planned to create a full service 130 bed hospital with the implementation of 2 ICU units with renal dialysis and CT scanners; essentially being the only functioning units within a 900 km radius.

CEML's strategy is to 'meet the great medical needs in the region and be a platform for spiritual outreach'.  With the southwest region of Angola being the locale of the most largely unreached people groups (not having any previous contact or access to the Gospel) in the country, CEML's medical outreach is aimed at reaching these peoples and bring Physical Health and Spiritual Hope through Christ.