These past 3 weeks Todd Sautter and I have been blessed with the opportunity to rotate at the Gonja Lutheran Hospital in Tanzania. The hospital is a 6 hour drive from Kilimanjaro, with the final two being a steep dirt mountain road in the middle of one of the largest wildlife reserves in the world. Despite being prepared, we were in complete shock upon our arrival seeing the working medical conditions of this remote hospital.

We start our day attending chapel and then rounding on the 60 Swahili inpatients in the hollow building. Our patient caseload consists of OB/GYN, infectious diseases like malaria and TB, acute surgery like appendectomies, and the whole gammit of rural medicine. To give you an idea, we use a relic pinard horn to listen for fetal heart beats, 2-3 patients sleep in one full sized bed, and patient meals consist only of black tea with porridge or white rice. For more description for our peers: only one size/type of suture is available in stock. Precious anesthetic use is limited with many surgical patients feeling pain during surgery. Only 2 surgical towels are allotted per surgical case, meaning they must be wrung out of blood in a bucket during surgery. Any surgical tools are outdated with not enough to supply one full set...for example, our provider had to use a hemostat to hold and maneuver a surgical blade that has no handle.


Gonja Lutheran Hospital is still a thriving community where life starts for many, the art of medicine is practiced without 21st century tools, and people are cured. The doctors and nurses are some of the most brilliant, innovative, and caring people we've had the honor of working beside. This has truly been a life changing experience for us both. Todd and I would love more than anything to give back to this community in need. We feel we have the power to do so but only with the help from our friends and family back home. We are reaching out to anyone reading this in search of support.

The hospital currently survives on a shoestring budget and rotating volunteer providers. The cost to run the hospital and provide care to the surrounding community for one month is $4,000. Our goal is to help alleviate their financial stress for at least one month, and anymore donations would be gladly welcomed.

We truly believe with the deepest conviction that one would be hard pressed to find an organization that is doing more for its people in such needy conditions as this and hope we are able to leave them with this gift.


Thank you from us both,

Keegan and Todd