Our Current Project:
Surgery Center
Phase 1 complete! Preparing for Phase 2.
We have completed Phase 1 of our Surgery Center. The building is constructed and the roof is on! Phase 2 will include plastering the walls, putting in the floor, putting in windows, doors, and much more! Thank you for helping provide this greatly needed service at our health center.
Check out the pictures below to see the progress and hear the story!
Our Health Center provides services for more than 3900 women of child-bearing age. As we grow to Community Hospital status, we expect this number to move closer to 15,000 women. These are women who currently must travel either by public transport or by ambulance to a distant facility if they need a c-section or have any risks or complications surrounding their pregnancy. At-risk mothers are one group who will benefit from the Surgery Center; we'll also be able to help men, women and children with their surgical needs.
This building will have two operating rooms, a sterilization room for the entire hospital, and office spaces. Thank you for helping us build the Surgery Center!
Our surgery center goal:
Progress on the Surgery Center
This is an artist rendering of the front of the Surgery building. We’ll be connecting the Surgery Center to the Maternity Center for easy access for our patients from Maternity.
The Surgery Center will be located in a central area of the health center near the Maternity.
Representatives from the COH Board of Trustees, District Health Management, our local health management committee and support groups plus chiefs and other community representatives broke ground at the site for the Surgery Center in June 2024.
Digging the foundation by hand was incredible to watch. The amazing strength and fortitude of these workmen and women are fantastic!
The trenches for the foundation are deep. The inspection engineer was amazed these guys could get through the rock packed soil this building is built on. Definitely building on the Rock here!
Once the foundation trenches were dug, it didn’t take long to building the foundation walls.
Many hands have gone into the building of this amazing place. Most of the workmen are from our local community, so an added bonus of building the local economy.
Plumbing was set in place before the slab was poured.
With the slab complete, it’s time for the walls to go up! Can you imagine mixing all that concrete for the slab by hand? Whew!
Walls go up fast when you’re building with cement blocks. WOW! Next comes finishing to to the tops of the windows, then the ring beam and finally the roof.
2 August 2024, walls are going higher and higher!
5 August 2024, look at the inside of the building taking shape. You can see the walls going through the center with the operating rooms on either side!
16 September 2024, we’ve reached the top of the walls and are ready for the trusses now. We still need to raise about $20,000 to finish up the roof.
In October, we’ve put the trusses on our building. How thrilling to see the work reach this level!
October 15th, the trusses are nearly finished and we’re still raising funds for the roofing! Praying for God’s generous provision before the rains come in December!
December 3rd, the roofing materials arrived late at night due to some issues with the truck.
December 6th, 2024 — half way done with the roof!
December 10th, 2024 - we finished Phase 1! I can't stop praising God and rejoicing over the roof on the Surgery Center! It is such a miracle to me that we've been able to build this building to this point. I can't even imagine! But it is amazing what can happen when people work together as we have done!
December 10th, 2024 - Phase 1 Complete!