A couple from Sarasota located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida and is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers, will be coming to Rwanda to in order to contribute to the development of the country’s health sector.
The couple plans to visit Rwanda towards the end of 2012 and will be here for almost a year-long mission of setting up a hospital and teach doctors, nurses to provide quality care as a part of the Duke University School of Nursing in partnership with the Clinton Health Initiative.
Dr. Washington Hill is an expert in caring for women and their babies in high risk pregnancies, while his wife Pauline is the nursing instructor at the University of Tampa.
“What I decided I want to do is go to Africa where I can teach medical students and residents and try to improve pregnancy care there,” says Dr. Hill.
“I will be helping mothers as well as their babies which is the area still facing challenges on the African continent,” he says.
“Among the serious problems in Africa is maternal mortality, where a mother dies from having a child, there are many ways we can prevent that.”
Their mission comes as a part of the Clinton Health Access Initiative. They are responding to a request for help from the president of Rwanda.
According to Dr. Hill, the program is set up for after 8 years the U.S. institutions like Harvard Brown, Yale…the big partners, will be able to pull out and raise the elevation of education in Rwanda and they’ll take over and do it from there.
Dr. Hill has delivered thousands of high risk babies over the past 35 years. His wife Pauline will be teaching nursing students in the classroom and hospital.
Pauline says she is thrilled about the challenges she faces. “To help women and children and to help a country that wants to elevate the level of education they have using their local women.
The couple has made other medical mission trips together to Africa and other countries through Hearts Afire. Hearts Afire is also involved in the Rwanda project.
Afire Co-Founder.
“Hearts of fire is a global mission operation whose purpose is to help the underserved medically throughout the world,” says Velma Vega, MD, Hearts Afire Co-Founder.
More than 200 Sarasota doctors and nurses are a part of Hearts Afire. Vega believes the Rwanda project will spread to other countries. “I think if we can make a country like Rwanda an example to so many other countries in Africa. Then what’s going to happen is all these other countries are going to have a model place or a model program.”
Hearts Afire was actually started here in Sarasota, and more than 200 Suncoast doctors and nurses are a part of it. More than 1000 physicians and health care professionals volunteer with Hearts Afire worldwide.
In 1997 Rwanda’s life expectancy was 25 years, although it has improved to 55 years, trained doctors and nurses are still insufficient.
Sarasota Memorial delivers 250 babies a month. At the Rwanda hospital, they deliver 650 a month. She wants to train nurses to give those babies and their mothers a better chance to survive and thrive. “I want to help them improve the outcome for those babies.”