Blessings Hospital
In the year 2000 Napoleon Dzombe, a small businessman in Malawi, Africa purchased a major tract of land along the main highway through the country. The purchase was composed of 85 acres located on highway M-1 north of the capital city of Lilongwe and one kilometer north of the entrance to the Kamuzu International Airport. Two Americans, Richard and Suzi Stephens persuaded Dzombe to use the land for a hospital and as a springboard for a charitable program to serve his nation. To accomplish this goal they formed a humanitarian aid organization in America and Dzombe created an entity called Blessings Hospital in Malawi. Construction on two buildings started in mid-year.
On July 21st just one year later the first building was completed. The Malawi Medical Council inspected the facility and gave approval for Blessings Hospital to open for outpatient services. The facility received its license the same afternoon. Soon medicines, medical supplies, and equipment were arriving at a rate that allowed them to not only supply the needs of Blessings Hospital but also to make supplies available to 50 other Malawi medical facilities. This number would eventually reach 144 medical facilities throughout the nation and the value would number in the millions and millions of dollars.
With a critical famine overrunning the nation in early 2002 construction on the second building was halted and its shell was used as a repository for food shipments to help the staving villagers.
By mid-2004 with the famine abating construction was started on a large medical storage building to facilitate an unprecedented program of aid. The next year, in 2005 a second medical storage building larger than the first joined the landscape at Blessings. That same year the Medical Council gave the go ahead to institute inpatient care and additional staff was hired to increase medical services.
In early-2006 the focus turned back to the completion of the second building of Blessings. Equipment was shipped and the Project team obtained the funding to complete a state of the art facility with x-ray, ultra sound, a trauma unit, and large, clean wards for patient care and cleanliness. Before the seasonal rains drenched the landscape the building was completed and ready for occupancy. In mid-2006 a new building was shipped from America to house a surgery center. Enclosed hallways linked the three buildings and the medical portion of the complex now numbered five buildings.
