Infoletter in English regarding situation at Mendi-clinic

Dear friends and former missionaries

I am writing this letter on behalf of a newly established committee for the project “Save the Mendi Clinic”. The committee is composed of five persons, four from Manasibu, Western Wollega, Ethiopia, but who now live in Norway and a chief municipal doctor, Hans Peter Torvik from Stavanger, Norway.

At Christmas, I was in Mendi with the family Ingeborg and Hans Peter Torvik. It was a fantastic tour with many new experiences.

Anyway, I was very sad when I both saw and heard how the situation was at the clinic. There was almost no medicine there. Because of this, there were very few patients and no one admitted. This despite the fact that the clinic should have served a population of over 182,000 (source: Statistics 2005, Ethiopia). The clinic leader said that the authorities require employed pharmacist, to obtain medication from the public stock. The clinic does not have funding for this position. In addition, the clinic is generally very poor economically. Due to that the preventive health care is not working well. The management of the Synod said that they had taken over the Mendi clinic without having enough money for the operation. They had hoped that they in short time mobilize the community to contribute financial support. This has proven to be very difficult. They have managed to keep the clinic, with the limited resources they have, but operations are suffering under the very bad economy. There is no financial support either for operational or professional from the mission organizations anymore.

I also had conversations with leaders in both the clinic and the Synod. All expressed concern about the future, due to lack of resources. This is also perceived as a threat to EECMY‘s (Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus) objective to serve the whole person with physical and spiritual needs.

We recall that Mendi clinic "in the good old days" almost served as a hospital. It hurt to see that today the clinic empty both for medicine and patients, and on the way to collapse. I spoke with the new young and enthusiastic synod leders when I was there, and later on the phone, about what they want we, Manasibu people who are living in Norway can contribute - to save the clinic. They have set up three areas, with both short and long term budget, (one year and three years respectively), on what they want us to be supporting.

On this basis, the few people (13) from Manasibu gathered in Oslo on 6 February. All were affected by the situation and has promised to contribute monthly to come. Immediately over 30 000 Norwegian Kroner was collected. This was a great start.

 
We hope and believe that the goal of our action is to get Mendi clinic on "legs" so that within three years to be better, in areas we were asked to support. We had a conference call with Development Department manager who affirmed that his side bet on the same goals.

Appeal for support: We, the people from the area, experiencing ourselves as the main contributors in this case. We view this as our duty. At the same time, we are pretty few and it is not all who have permanent jobs and earn much more than for their livelihood. Therefore, we decided to ask you good friends, and former missionaries to stand at our side to save Mendi clinic.

We hope that you have concern and sympathy for the clinic and would like to participate in the Synod to support this important work. Many of you have warm and fond memories of the time in Wollega. You who have worked there know that Manasibu never forget you and your efforts.

Our motto is Oromo proverb: cooreen waliiti yaate galaana tatii. The translation goes something like this: When many streams come together, they become a lake.