Foundation expands collaboration with Mnero Hospital

Last year, the Mount Meru Foundation initiated a collaboration with Mnero Hospital in southern Tanzania. This partnership is now being continued through the project Strengthening Ultrasound and Outreach Care at Mnero Hospital. It is the foundation’s first project in the southern part of mainland Tanzania.

Mnero Hospital is located in the Lindi region and provides healthcare services to approximately 200,000 people from Mnero and surrounding villages. Two-thirds of this care is focused on pregnant women and children. As this patient group continues to grow, the need for good diagnostic services—particularly ultrasound—has increased accordingly.

Ultrasound is essential for the early detection of pregnancy-related complications. At Mnero Hospital, around 300 ultrasound examinations are performed each month within the hospital, in addition to 50 to 100 scans carried out during outreach activities in remote villages where access to healthcare is limited.

Since last year, the Mount Meru Foundation has been supporting the training of Alexius, a staff member of Mnero Hospital, to become a sonographer. This training forms the basis for further strengthening local healthcare capacity.

The foundation has provisionally committed to contributing to the first two components of the project:

• the purchase of a mobile ultrasound device for outreach care;

• the training of three healthcare workers as sonographers—one from Mnero and one each from the hospitals of Nyangao and Kipatimu.

The third component, focused on developing a regional ultrasound training center, will be elaborated at a later stage. For now, the emphasis is on intensifying the collaboration and realizing the first steps.

Through this project, the Mount Meru Foundation contributes to the sustainable improvement of maternal and child healthcare in southern Tanzania.