Help Dr. Mengistu raise funds for PPE in Ethiopia

Africa is expected to be hit hard by the Corona Virus Pandemic, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated. Sadly, Africa’s already inadequate health system setup worsens the risk to people living here in a great fold.

I am a physician in Ethiopia, Africa who is working on the Corona task force of my hospital. I'm an artist in pencil drawing and also a writer for Physician Family Magazine and a member of the Physician Family Community Facebook group in the USA. My country needs to work aggressively towards prevention of this disease because of a deep shortage of medical equipment like mechanical ventilators, which assist infected patients with breathing. An outbreak of COVID-19 here would quickly surpass the capacity of our hospitals; therefore, prevention is the most powerful tool and really the only choice we have.

There is a great shortage of health care workers in Africa, a shortage which is especially bad here in Ethiopia. That makes it even more important that we protect the few health care workers we have by providing them with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). World markets for PPE are already stressed because the Pandemic has affected so many countries. This unfortunately leaves already poor Africa in an even more difficult position since our health care facilities are already operating without extra funds for more supplies. This means that we must look elsewhere to obtain support to purchase PPE for our health care workers, which is why I have created this Go Fund Me.

Since this crisis impacts the whole world, we have seen that no country can do it alone. Helping one another and extending kindnesses to those in need is a great blessing and any help anyone can provide for our health care needs in Ethiopia will be much appreciated.