Introduction

ST BERNARD HANGA HEALTH CENTRE

 St Bernard Hanga Health Centre non profit is situated in the Ruvuma region Southern of Tanzania. It is based in the village of Hanga.  It is a quiet area and belongs to (originally African) Benedictine Monks.
The health centre covers a population of about 18,000 inhabitants and has 35 beds. 8 dispensaries refer their patients to this centre.
Other health centre, whether close by or not, send their patients here because of the supply of therapies, examination possibilities, and good quality care and treatments.
The composition of the local staff is as follows: 1 doctor work here, and 8 Nurses.St Bernard Health Centre started as a dispensary in 1987- a building with one room. It was between 2000 and 2012 that wards were added to upgrade it to a health centre. The health centre is geared towards the curative aspect of acute medical and surgical conditions against the background of holistic care. 

The most common disease in this area of Tanzania is malaria and its associated conditions such as anaemia. The health centre also provides an outreach programme at 6 sites which are visited once a month. As the government also requires medicines to be provided free of charge vaccine to under 5's children and ante-natal patients. Patients come long distances to be treated here because of its high reputation. There is a new HIV clinic (52 patients registered) with continuing care.   On a visit many village in August 2012, we discovered that many of their patients need to walk more than 40km over very difficult roads to get to the health centre. The centre now has 35 beds and carries out minor surgery and we are building the surgery room to help the patients who need the major service. Health centre operates the following department, Outpatient Department, Labour ward, Laboratory department, Medical ward, Reproductive and child Health clinic, voluntary cancelling and Testing of HIV, Dental Department, and Eye clinic department. Due to the recent crop failures in Tanzania there are large numbers of cases of malnutrition in the Hanga and are in need of food supplements. Hanga is a HIV accredited Centre and although they receive ARVs from the government.