A little about Tenwek Hospital...

Since you are all probably tired of hearing about us as well as bad medical stories, we thought we would tell you a little about our area of the World. Tenwek Hospital is in the rural Kenya highlands. We are less than 10 miles from Kenya’s largest rain forest (Mau) so get much rain off of all that vegetation. So from a farming standpoint, we are in a good spot of the world. The countryside is like a quilt of small farms dotted with very small homes.

The main thing they grow (and eat) is corn. They grind it into cornmeal, add a little water and cook it into a semi-solid substance called ugali. To them, this is “food”. Without it, one has not eaten. To us, this is “not good food”. Nutritionally, it is a cheap source of calories but is pretty much devoid of nutrients (not to mention flavor). As a result, malnutrition is very common here. One measurable side effect of only eating ugali is anemia. At this elevation and level of activity, a normal blood level (hemoglobin) should be around 14. However, the average patient seems to have a level of about 10, and numerous times in our months here I have seen it in the 2’s and 3’s. It is more difficult to work the farm and for a child to learn and develop when they are malnourished. Our pediatric ward typically has about 5 kids that are admitted primarily for severe malnutrition, but most admits have some degree of malnutrition and multitudes go on with less severe chronic malnutrition that affects them for life.

Our plentiful rainfall and temperature range between 50’s at night and 70’s during the day also lends itself to growing lots of tea. This is the cash crop that locals sell to British tea factories in the area, or they may work directly for the tea company. It is a hard job to pick tea but pays relatively well.

Tenwek Hospital is in rural Kenya, 140 miles west of Nairobi. It was started in the 1930’s as a small clinic and has grown since then. They now treat more than 10,000 inpatients and 150,000 clinic visits per year. Their motto is, “We Treat, Jesus Heals”, which becomes so evident when our feeble attempts at helping cure medical problems fail. Besides giving inexpensive physical and spiritual care to a referral population of a million people, Tenwek thrives as a teaching hospital. They have a nursing school, chaplaincy school, and they have multiple types of what we would call residency programs for doctors. We are always happy that many trainees stay and work at Tenwek, but most move on to other needy parts of Kenya or, frankly, where they get better pay.