Selian Lutheran Hospital

A hospital with a mission to serve the poor
and the sick in the name of Jesus Christ

• Opened with a mission to minister to sick Tanzanians in the 1950s
• Selian have a 120 bed hospital on the outskirts of Arusha and have built an additional 150 bed hospital in the city centre, Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre, which was completed at the beginning of 2009
• Provides both inpatient and outpatient care in:

1. Medicine
2. Surgery
3. Paediatrics
4. Obstetrics
5. Maternal and child health
6. Orphan care
7. Hospice 

• 50,000 outpatient clinic appointments each year
• Led by Dr Mark Jacobson, a very competent American physician and administrator who has served at the hospital for 22 years
• 25 medical staff

Surgical Department Overview

• 2000 operations a year including:

1. 100s of vesico-vaginal fistulas
2. 300 major orthopaedic cases
3. Trauma and acute abdominal surgery

• Managed and operated by three Tanzanian surgeons and Jenny.
• Visited by overseas surgical teams each year, doing procedures such as corrective surgery to children with skeletal flurosis, among the top five causes of crippling, and repair of cleft lips and palates

Teaching

• They currently have 10% of their staff doing higher education
• Three CME (continuing medical education) meetings a week
• They provide scholarships to Clinical Officers to attend medical school

Funding

• Government expenditure on health is less than $2 per capita annually
• Selian actively seeks to attract wealthier paying patients, in order to subsidise the poor
• 30% of the annual budget comes from donations to the hospital. A $US 2,000 donation will operate the hospital and clinics for a day.