The Sikonge Mission Hospital is a faith-based hospital owned by the Moravian Church in Western Tanzania. The hospital was started in 1923 by the British missionary doctor Arthur Kievel, therefore celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year. The hospital covers an area of nearly 28,000 square kilometres mainly consisting of wild forest and small, scattered villages. Approximately 210,000 people live in this area. Many are small subsistence farmers and occasional hunger is not rare. The education level is very low, the infrastructure is bad and the journey to proper health services is long. The number of mothers dying during childbirth and children dying from treatable diseases is heart-breaking. This is the population that Sikonge Mission Hospital serves.

Sikonge Mission Hospital never rejects a person with a need for urgent treatment or medicine even if they cannot pay. The hospital’s motto is “Patient first”, therefore, when urgent treatment is required the patient comes first and the means to pay is considered afterwards. Many patients are therefore treated without ever being able to pay; they are exempt from payment. But the hospital’s financial ability to give exemptions is limited. They wish to be able to offer treatment and medicine to every single person in need.

The exemptions follow an official and clear procedure to ensure that everybody is treated equally. It begins with a medical assessment to determine urgency. If the situation is urgent, the patient will be treated first, and the process of exemption will continue afterwards. Assessment of the patient’s vulnerability is measured by a number of factors including their level of poverty and social needs.

Social networks are also an important factor when assessing vulnerability as the extended family will, to a large extent, help each other out in times of need.

Through the assessment procedure the Hospital ensures that the programme “catches” the poorest of the poor. This might be a widowed mother with a sick child, a poor cancer patient with a need for a big operation, or a pregnant woman from a remote catchment area who has already travelled for hours on poor transport and roads. With our help the Hospital hopes to be able to ensure that no one with a pressing need for treatment or medicine will be left without help due to poverty.

Therefore, we are asking for support for the Exemption Programme to enable the hospital to help to accommodate the great need for free treatment and medicine.