Can Malawi’s newly empowered farmers transform one of the world’s poorest countries?
The district hospital at Mchinji in Malawi was built nearly 20 years ago to serve a population of 275,000. It is a modern complex that, from the outside, would not look out of place in any British city. The trouble is that it’s drowning under a sea of patients.
Mchinji lies in the far west of Malawi where the Zambian and Mozambican borders meet. The sick swarm over the borders and swell the hospital’s catchment area to more than 600,000. With a population of 13 million, Malawi has the lowest number of doctors per person in the world; a 17-bed children’s ward will typically treat at any one time 185 kids suffering, and often dying, from malaria, pneumonia or anaemia.
The sick children are accompanied by a parent – or, just as likely, a guardian, because Aids has sunk its claws into the people who farm this fertile land. Consequently, life expectancy has reduced from 45 in 1990 to 37 in 2005. Virtually every adult you meet looks after at least one Aids orphan, more likely several.
But Mchinji District Hospital has no beds for those accompanying the sick, let alone cooking or washing facilities. So opposite the hospital, gathered on scrubby grass, are hundreds of women and children at the mercy of the elements. Some are pregnant, waiting to go into labour.
Yet here at Mchinji, contrary to perception, all is not lost. Three weeks ago, work started on a brick shelter to protect parents, guardians and expectant mothers from the sheeting rain and scorching sun. Progress has been rapid: the foundations have been laid and the structure is rising out of the ground. Work should finish soon. What’s remarkable is that the shelter has been paid for by nuts – fair-trade groundnuts, grown in Malawi and sold to British shoppers. (more…)
