AfriKids Medical CentreUpdate May 2010

A young boy suffering with malaria is treated in a new ward at the AfriKids Medical Centre, March 2010

The AfriKids Medical CentreAt the heart of AfriKids Ghana

The AfriKids Medical Centre is the lifeblood of AfriKids in Bolgatanga, it is an institution the organisation’s 160 strong staff are immensely proud of and along with their families, friends and all the beneficiaries of our work, depend upon for their good health. The centre has treated a girl brought back from the streets of Kumasi by Operation Fresh Start for breast cancer and it has been the birth place of our staff’s children to name just two of the life changing, and saving, services it has provided. It also employs and offers exceptional training opportunities to fifty local people in the medical and caring professions. In a very real way the centre is helping AfriKids Ghana to become locally sustainable, by contributing up to 10% of its annual running costs and proving that enterprise in northern Ghana can work for both social and financial returns. Daniel (above) who lives at the AfriKids

sponsored Mama Laadi’s Foster Home waits with his National Health

Insurance Card for a malaria test at the centre. Thanks to the centre all

children on AfriKids’ projects and wider Bolgatanga community receive free, quick and caring treatment for their

medical problems. Mama Laadidescribes the AfriKids Medical Centre

as the greatest thing AfriKids has done for her community so far, with this

service she says ‘things are really changing’ and if anyone knows what

those who struggle the most in Bolgatana need, it’s Mama Laadi.

Pictured below are some of the senior staff at the AfriKids Medical Centre and AfriKids Ghana who have been key to its development, pictured at the centre this March. From the left:

• Simon- accountant at the centre; • Lena- head of external affairs; • Didas- head of sustainability and micro-finance who has responsibility

for the centre’s development; • Cletus and behind him David- heads of core and partner projects

respectively; • Solo- head of finance who assists Simon with the annual accounts; • Ray- head of external affairs; • Felix- administrator at the centre who handles the day to day running; • Bismark- who heads up the award winning lab at the centre; • Nick Eastcott- who won the Vodafone World of Difference programme

to work with the centre for one year on its development strategy (he is a retired hospital manager);

• Nich Kumah- director of AfriKids Ghana and • Sebastian- head of IT who is helping to computerise patient records

Centre ExpansionCurrent Situation

One new ward has been built and two ward extensions are being constructed as part of a major expansion of the AfriKids Medical Centre which will see its capacity increase from 13 beds to 45. Demand for the centre’s services has exploded since AfriKids bought it in 2007 and its ratio of inpatients to outpatients has become imbalanced. To give a point of comparison, the neighbouring district hospital in Bongo has 63 beds and sees 30,000 outpatients per year, the AfriKids Medical Centre has just 13 beds and sees over 60,000 outpatients per year. This means that more often than not AfriKids has to refer patients who need inpatient treatment on to other facilities which are themselves oversubscribed. The new wards will stop this.

The photo above right shows the ward extensions as they were in March, they have since reached roofing level and the walls are going up. The work is being done by A.Salif co a local contractor who is familiar with healthcare construction and has worked on AfriKids’ projects before. AfriKids Ghana has a thorough recruitment process for contractors in which they put work out for tender and consider several bids. Local labourers including young men AfriKids has helped to resettle from the streets of Kumasi under Operation Fresh Start are working on the development and regular meetings are held between the construction team and management at the centre and AfriKids Ghana. The wards are being built in such a way that a second storey can easily be added in the future when expansion may be needed, but would be limited without extra land if not for this measure. AfriKids have just invested in a new back up generator able to power the entire centre in the case of power outages.

Southampton University Hospitals Trust, our partners in healthcare development, have donated 60 hospital beds which have been shipped to Ghana and are currently making their way the 800km north to Bolgatanga ready for when the new wards open. Currently the one newly completed ward is in operation whilst construction takes place, it is pictured below. This will eventually become a solely paediatric ward and AfriKids is currently looking at the possibility of developing the centre into a mother and child specialist hospital in the long term.

Centre ExpansionDevelopment of Maternal Health Services

In 2008 the Jephcott Charitable Trust funded the construction of a Maternal Health Unit at the AfriKids Medical Centre (above). As ante

natal, family planning and maternal health services grew so did demand by women

wanting to give birth at the centre. Anna Maria and John Kennedy, who have shown

enormous commitment to the centre kindly funded the partition and construction of a delivery room in the Maternal Health Unit

(see below, the verandah has been converted into a delivery room and waiting area).

Women giving birth now have the space and privacy they need to bring their children

safely into the world.

The AfriKids Medical Centre2009 figures

2009 Figures

• Total revenue- £544,134• Total profit- £44,494

• Return on investment- 15%• Total patients- 60,722

• Total outpatients- 58,566• Total inpatients- 2,156

• Total under fives treated for malaria- 13,139• Total under fives treated

for severe diarrhoeal diseases- 995• Total pregnant women treated for

severe malaria- 412

Patient Satisfaction Survey Findings (this survey was carried out in November 2009 with 100 patients selected at random)

• 97% of patients said they were happy with reception and treatment received in the consultation

• 95% of patients said they will return to the AfriKids Medical Centre next time they or a family member are ill

• 90% of in-patients were satisfied with their care in the ward, 71% said the care was better than other health facilities they had experienced

In the first quarter of 2010 the accounts and patient figures for 2009 have all been

finalised and submitted to the health and tax authorities in Ghana. The next three pages of

figures and graphs breakdown the performance of the centre as a whole.

The AfriKids Medical CentrePatient trends

Peaks in patient numbers relate to peak occurrence of malaria during the rainy season

The AfriKids Medical CentreFinancial trends

As the centre has grown, profitability as a proportion of revenue has dipped. Increasing costs of running the centre have been a big part of causing this; both through increased staff numbers and significantly increased inflation in drug costs. In 2009 at the height of the financial crisis inflation was at 25% in Ghana and in real terms in the Upper East the figure was even higher. Whist the AfriKids Medical Centre has been expanding to offer the services and treatments of a primary hospital, which it has now received the status of, its income has not been increasing at the same pace. This is partly because there is a lag in the National Health Insurance tariff status which means the price paid for drugs only increases annually and partly because the centre has not been offering the most profitable services associated with a hospital including significant inpatient care. The new wards will help to redress this and drive up profitability.

AfriKids Social Investment ClubNew stakeholders in the AfriKids Medical Centre

“The idea is simple: a group of people comes together as a syndicate, and together invests as if they were one large-scale donor. The syndicate gets to know the charity, gets involved in directing how funds are used, and gets first hand information on how their investment is performing. The result? For the first time, there is an easy way to direct part of your investment portfolio into philanthropy.”Dan Salmons

“For many years I have been giving to charity but have become frustrated. I am not convinced most charities spend the money wisely and I have no way of really knowing, or of influencing how the money is spent. And my money, even what I consider a large amount, is a drop in the ocean in many charities.

I think I have a neat solution. The first step was to find a charity I really like working with, AfriKids, which is a small but very effective child rights organisation funding projects in Ghana. Giving money to AfriKids I see as an investment. I won't get financial returns; the returns are in knowing that a part of the world is more healthy and wealthy and less reliant on Western handouts.”Patrick Andrews

The AfriKids Social Investment Club (ASIC) was founded in November 2009 at a launch reception at the top of the Barclays Tower in Canary Wharf. The club is the initiative of AfriKids and two founding members; Dan Salmons and Patrick Andrews. Dan

and Patrick, pictured to the right on their first project for AfriKids (a trek to the peak of Mt Toubkal) had both been

searching for new ways to work with charity for some time and came together to design ASIC.

The idea of the club is to make a real difference in Africa through targeted donations enabling the development of

enterprises that show both financial and social returns. The enterprises in question are owned, run and developed by

AfriKids Ghana and the financial return is invested, in consultation with ASIC, in AfriKids’ child rights work in northern

Ghana.

The first round of investment by ASIC has gone to fund the construction of one of the two new wards at the AfriKids

Medical Centre.

Welcome and thank you to the first ASIC Members

Dan Salmons, Patrick Andrews, Simon Wooller, Terry Tucker, David White, Richard Spragg,

Jim Rice, Richard Tandoh&STAR 100 collective,

Regal Poylthene ltd, John Kemp

“AfriKids has always tried to develop innovative approaches to development, and in so doing, foster responsible and responsive

relationships with donors. We deal with very emotive and evocative situations and people. From the spirit children saved from neglect and infanticide; to street children given love and

opportunity... Any one of the projects we work with make easy fundraising material…

I’m afraid I feel that this is where far too much aid work is still at. AfriKids has always tried to take our work to another level; a

genuine and demonstrable commitment to real sustainability.”Georgie Fienberg, Interational Director of AfriKids, from her

speech at the ASIC launch