Ethiopia
Ethiopia‘s health care system is in crisis with more than half the country having no access to health care at all. Of those that do, only a small percentage lives within a two-hour walk of a health care facility.
Projects funded: 131
There is just one doctor to every 100,000 people in the country and other trained medical staff such as nurses is in equally short supply.
This situation is exacerbated by the fact many trained medical professionals leave the country in search of high wages. Today, for example, there are more Ethiopia-trained doctors living in the city of Chicago than there are in all of Ethiopia.
Preventable and treatable diseases such as cholera, river blindness, yellow fever, dengue, hepatitis and typhoid fever kill thousands annually.
One out of every 10 Ethiopian children dies before their fifth birthday. Half of those die from diarrhea. Poor nutrition and infections contribute to one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
To make matters worse, at its current rate of growth, Ethiopia’s population is expected to double within the next 20 years causing an increasingly massive burden on already overstretched medical services.
To help stem the tide of this worsening situation, A Glimmer of Hope has invested almost $4 million in new health posts and clinics throughout Ethiopia providing improved access to care to approximately one million people.
It has also invested heavily in the rehabilitation of a regional base hospital in the remote township of Dembi Dollo. The hospital is now a main center for medical treatment in Southwest Ethiopia recording as many as 45,000 patient visits each year.
