St. Mary Hospital, Axum, is one of the leading and oldest hospitals in northern Ethiopia, in the central region of Tigray in the ancient city of Axum.
It serves 1.5 million people with 600 out-patient visits per day and 7,670 in-patient services monthly. The hospital has four major wards for internal medicine, including gyno-obstetrics with MCH and pediatrics. On average, the bed occupancy rate for in-patients in 2020 was 7.8 days per patient. The hospital employs 430 medical and supportive staff, none of whom have been paid for the past two years.
Previously, the hospital used to provide food for its in-patients. The cost of providing meal service is 120 Ethiopian Birr/per patient per day, which is 632,000.00 ETB for all in-patients per month.
“As a result of the siege and closure of all financial services to the region, the hospital has been unable to access the funds in its bank account. There has not been any budget for the last two years. Nearby churches and communities provided food for the patients, but these supplies have now dwindled.
The hospital has been forced to suspend admissions for in-patient services even if they are critically ill because of a shortage of food and drugs. Previously, in-patients who came from the countryside brought their own food and elected to leave the hospital against medical advice once their food ran out.
Doctors are reporting many cases of severe malnutrition, and they cannot administer their standard management (high protein and energy-giving foods) due to a lack of funds to procure these foods from the market.
“We have many deaths because of nutrition deficiency and incomplete services as the quality of care has decreased. The death rate now has reached 21.6%, but it was 0.5% before the war,” report the doctors from St. Mary’s Hospital in Axum.
“We kindly request you to support us on behalf of the patients and the people of Axum,” the staff urge.
Axum University Comprehensive and Referral Hospital was inaugurated in June 2015 under the Axum University Health Science College, which offered undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. It had 300 beds with more than 10 specialists and 140 medical doctors. There were about 200 residents and 50 interns, and 210 nurses. The hospital served approximately 100,00 patients each year before the war broke out.
Both hospitals are now forced to suspend in-patient services due to food shortages and have a dire need for medicine and essential supplies to save lives.
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