By Sr. Rosalinda Gonzales, mmm

Sr. Rosalinda is the only Filipino member of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. She is looking after the Kabanga Hospital, much overcrowded since the war in Rwanda. Here she shares with us the heartaches and joys of keeping it all going for them.

I owe you a crate of beer,” Mr. Wim Piels announced when I met him. I was at the Diocesan Development Office at the Bishop’s compound in Kigoma one day in August last year when I literally bumped into Mr. Wim. He is the consultant for Caritas/Memisa (Netherlands) and was visiting the Diocesan Development Office which is under the support of Caritas.

I took his unusual statement about the beer as a promise if and when my application for relief doctors and basic hospitals equipments would be approved by Memisa.

Two years previously, I had submitted the application to Memisa for these requests for Kabanga Hospitals.

In January last year, a Dutch volunteer doctor was sponsored by Memisa to help in Kabanga Hospitals for three months. The recent influx or refugees from Zaire and Burundi in October of the previous year necessitated the opening of three additional refugee camps. Kabanga Hospitals is a referral hospital of the refugees apart from its being a referral hospital for leprosy patients.

There is a perennial problem of shortage of doctors in Kabanga Hospitals due to its remoteness. To help alleviate this on-going problem, the hospitals, management was given special permission by the local government health authorities to allow our anaesthetic officers to join the doctor’s list. Apart from him I had no other assisting doctor after the Memisa Volunteer doctors left in March.

Due to the heavy workload, we got a loan on an ‘on-and-off basis of a Tanzanian doctor from Kasulu Government Hospitals for almost a year. It was a great disappointment that the Tanzanian doctors left in July. He had been sponsored in his post in his post-graduate studies by MMM and Kigoma Diocese in return for his services. After one year, he requested to transfer to a more progressive hospital.

Amidst those unexpected events, the Lord of love and compassion provided the courage and strength to inspire the MMM Regional Superior however hoped that I would be able to go home for Christmas. On my part, I surrendered to circumstances so that I could continue to serve wholeheartedly.

To my great relief, Sr. Dr. Maria Borda, mmm agreed come to help out as doctor in charge of Kabanga Hospital while I am away whenever that happens.

Then one evening in September, Mr. Wim and the diocesan health secretary arrived at our Convent in Kabanga with a crate of beer, I could not believe my eyes. It was really a crate of beer and not just a figure of speech as I took it before.

This meant that my project submitted to MEMISA was approved. The equipments would be coming. Some volunteer doctors will work in Kabanga Hospitals on a short term (six weeks to three months) and long term (one year) basis.

My most wonderful gift was that I was home for Christmas. Praise the Lord.