Tanzania to get second floating clinic

Posted on :Friday , 12th December 2014

MWANZA, Tanzania – The Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Clinic/WAVE non-governmental organization is introducing a floating health clinic on Lake Tanganyika.

East African Business Week has learnt that LTFHC/WAVE is an international NGO whose mission is to help ease problems of healthcare access for isolated communities in the Lake Tanganyika Basin. Lake Tanganyika basin is one of the most remote areas in Tanzania.

LTFHC has assembled a world-class team of ship-building and medical space engineers, who have completed concept designs, as well as the construction and running-cost estimates for the ship.

LTFHC is being run by two teams, one in the United States and another in Africa. The Africa-based team is being led by the LTFHC founder Dr Amy Lehman.

The Floating Lake Tanganyika Health Clinic would be the second medical ship on Tanzanian inland waters. The first one, from Scotland, Mv Jubilee Hope arrived three months ago to provide medical services on Lake Victoria. Jubilee Hope docked at Mwanza North port on September 24, 2014 after a 246-day journey from Glasgow. The ship is under the management of Africa Inland Church and to start with it will serve the islands within Geita and Sengerema districts with a population of 500,000.

The project is being run jointly by Africa Inland Church (AIC), Geita Diocese and a Scottish charity organization, Vine Trust.

The project aims at offering medical services in AIDS, dental, laboratory, mother and child health care in the regions of Geita, Mwanza and Kagera. The floating hospital would cater for more than 200 small islands on Lake Victoria. Most of these islands get minimal primary care services.

On Lake Victoria there are over 150 island communities with over 500,000 people in the Tanzanian sector alone. Like on Lake Tanganyika, these people have little or no access to a meaningful health service. The designed Lake Tanganyika medical ship would be over 200 feet long and 40 feet wide. LTFHC’s state-of-the-art ship is uniquely designed to provide patients with everything from acute and ICU critical care and surgery and recover.

It would also conduct laboratory research, pharmaceutical supplies and training for local and foreign healthcare workers.

Once on the lake the 1,300-ton floating medical and educational facility will serve as a regional-level hospital, working in collaboration with all shore-based community health centres around the lake.

With room for 25 medical and research staff and 15-crew, the ship is designed to be self-sufficient, environmentally efficient, and can be maintained from its own stores and workshops with a minimal need for long-term docking or repairs. The LTFHC ship would serve a multitude of purposes including hospital, supply store, dispensary and educational facility for both medicine and global health study. It will also promote appropriate and improved agricultural techniques, and provide a setting for those collecting data on development interventions.

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