BGR helps restore unhealthy hospital in Senegal --
When a Senegal hospital was ailing, with grimy grounds and barely-there electricity, funding for the purchase of generators helped restore it to good health.

By Marie Beaufain

SENEGAL — She’s been walking nearly 20 miles. The roads are dusty and the air so hot it’s suffocating — this is no pleasure trek. It’s an errand of desperation. There may be a problem with her pregnancy and she has to get to the hospital, her swollen belly making the grueling conditions twice as tough.

But when she arrives, there’s nothing to be done. The power has cut out again, and when there’s no power, there’s no hope.

This story is a common one for those living around a rural village in Senegal where Southern Baptist church planters Steve and Jenna Fieldes* have been serving roughly five years. After organizing several clean-up days to restore the aesthetics of the facility, the Fieldes decided to apply for a funding from Baptist Global Response to cover the cost of a few backup generators for the facility. They were quickly approved, and soon the hospital was brought back to full functionality.

Before, scenes of ripped mattresses, garbage-strewn grounds and stain- and scum-covered walls kept residents far from the facility.

“People were nervous about going to the hospital — they were afraid they’d get a sickness by going,” Steve said.

The hospital began to gain a reputation that patients were welcome to walk in, but rarely did they walk back out again. What should have been a place of healing had become a place of death.

This attitude impacted hospital workers, who were discouraged in their limited ability to help those in need or even perform their jobs. With power cuts lasting 12 hours and occurring nearly every other day, important equipment and machinery — such as ultrasounds and life support — had no way of functioning. Tests could not be run. Blood samples and thousands of dollars of medicine and vaccinations ended up spoiled without refrigeration.

After the BGR funding was approved, the Fieldes were able to purchase several generators and place them strategically around the hospital. Now, the lab, maternity ward, emergency room and dentist office, among others, have been brought back online, redefining the community’s outlook on the facilities and encouraging the staff in their work of restoring the people.

“By coming in and working alongside [the community] and touching a lot of the points of difficulty, it’s given them a new courage,” Steve said. “Now there is a new [hospital] director trying to make improvements. ... Now there are hopes to bring it to a new level in the future.”

Marie Beaufain is a writing intern for the International Mission Board.

*Names changed to ensure security.