Comprehensive Cancer Care at Mbingo Baptist Hospital

Volunteers and staff at Mbingo Baptist Hospital (MBH) in rural northwest Cameroon have been working for 15 years to bring comprehensive cancer treatment to the region. We are so close.

Today we have an urgent need for $200,000 to decommission a donated Linac (radiotherapy machine) in Wales, move, and install it in Mbingo. We must move this machine this summer, and so we are asking for your help today. With your generosity, MBH will begin treating cancer patients with radiotherapy in early 2027.

Most facilities in the region offer one or two types of cancer care — surgery and sometimes chemotherapy — but with your support, MBH will be the first mission hospital in Africa to offer surgical, medical, and radiotherapy oncology services — the full continuum of care that modern cancer treatment requires and that all patients deserve.

But we will lose this opportunity to bring the donated Linac to Cameroon if we cannot raise the $200,000 needed in the summer of 2026. Without this machine, patients with treatable cancers will go home to await a recurrence, or to die.

Please give generously if you can. Read on for more information about Mbingo Baptist Hospital, our multi-phase plan for an integrated cancer treatment center with patient housing, our project budget, naming opportunities, and other ways you can help. Thank you for your support!

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What Patients Face Today

Elizabeth is a 68 year-old widow living in northwest Cameroon. Several years ago, she came to the Mbingo Baptist hospital with a six-year history of recurring swelling in her left jaw. In 2021, she had her first surgery, where doctors found adenoid cystic carcinoma, a cancer that would be highly responsive to radiation therapy. Yet living in rural northwest Cameroon, Elizabeth could not access the radiotherapy she needed. Since then, Elizabeth’s cancer treatment has been limited to surgeries only, resulting in her losing part of her jaw and left eye.

Elizabeth’s recurring cancer could have been prevented, but the radiotherapy she needs is unavailable to her. Cameroon’s sole Linac radiotherapy machine is at least a day’s drive from home, and overwhelmed with patients seeking care. For most Cameroonians, a cancer diagnosis is a death sentence – not because the disease is untreatable – but because radiotherapy is simply not within reach.

With effective treatments and cures available, people with a cancer diagnosis deserve access to high-quality healthcare. Yet, every day people die from treatable cancers because of where in the world they were born.

Where you live shouldn't determine whether you live.

A Challenge We Will Not Ignore

Cancer is rising fastest in the places least equipped to fight it. Of the 16 million new cancer cases diagnosed each year throughout the world, 70% occur in developing countries, and Africa bears the highest cancer mortality rate in the world. The reasons are painfully clear: late diagnosis, limited treatment infrastructure, and an almost complete absence of radiotherapy.

Today, radiotherapy is available in only 21 of 53 African countries, and while 63% of cancer patients would benefit from it, fewer than 5% of African patients with cancer are actually able to access the radiation therapy needed to cure them.

In the entire country of Cameroon, there is just one working radiotherapy machine, well below the International Atomic Energy Agency’s recommended bare minimum of 40 machines for Cameroon’s population of nearly 30 million people, and a far cry from the recommended 106 machines that would adequately serve the country.

The Mbingo Baptist Hospital: Hope in West Africa

Today, MBH treats approximately 1,500 new patients every year from across Cameroon and neighboring Central African countries. The hospital has earned affiliations with some of the world's foremost cancer institutions, including Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, and Oxford University.

The oncology program at MBH reflects more than 15 years of deliberate, strategic development and fundraising:

2009: Medical oncology service established, bringing basic chemotherapy to patients for the first time.

2011: First full-time pathologist joins MBH, dramatically improving the speed and accuracy of cancer diagnosis.

2021: Hydroelectric plant completed, providing the stable, reliable electricity that sophisticated cancer treatment demands.

2022: Bunker construction began thanks to an investment from Samaritan’s Purse

Recent years: Cancer Registry and Palliative Care program implemented; advanced laboratory and imaging facilities added, including CT scanning and ultrasound with elastography.

2025: Mbingo Baptist Hospital was offered a Linac for radiotherapy from the North Wales Cancer Treatment Centre, if we can transport it during the summer of 2026.

2026: Bunker construction completed

Present: Two fellowship-trained specialists — a medical oncologist and a physician with combined medical and radiation therapy training — have returned home to lead the program into the future.

With these foundational resources in place, Mbingo Baptist Hospital now turns to completing the remaining treatment infrastructure, including a radiotherapy program, a patient hostel, and a dedicated four-story cancer treatment center. What began as a 300-bed referral hospital in the Northwest Region of Cameroon has grown into one of the most capable medical institutions in the region and is the largest of six hospitals run by Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services.

We have the Linac machine awaiting transport. We have the trained and dedicated doctors. The bunker has been poured. But if we do not raise funding to transport the accelerator from Wales, this donation will be lost and the project’s completion date set back years.

Mbingo Baptist Hospital, site of the Mbingo Cancer Center. Cameroon

Why Mbingo Baptist Hospital; Why Now

Infrastructure in place. We are nearing full capabilities for radiation oncology treatment at MBH. A recently completed hydroelectric plant brought a reliable power source online specifically to power the radiotherapy machine.

Most urgently, Mbingo Baptist Hospital has received a donated radiotherapy machine and accompanying software, and we are at risk of losing these precious contributions if we cannot quickly raise the money needed to transport and install the equipment. Commitments made by June, 2026 will ensure that Cameroonians can access oncology radiotherapy at the Mbingo Baptist Hospital in 2027.

Integrated, comprehensive care. Most facilities in the region offer one or two modalities of cancer care. The Mbingo Cancer Center will offer surgical, medical, pediatric, and radiation oncology under one roof — the full continuum of care that modern cancer treatment requires.

A commitment to affordability. In keeping with Mbingo Baptist Hospital's long history of serving the poor, the Cancer Center is explicitly designed to provide high-quality care at a cost that even the most vulnerable patients can access.

Local ownership, global expertise. The Cameroonian physicians leading this program trained at world-class institutions and chose to come home. The combination of deep local knowledge and commitment paired with international-caliber training is rare and powerful.

A proven institutional partner network. Our affiliations with Dana-Farber, St. Jude, MD Anderson, Mayo Clinic, Oxford, and others provide ongoing clinical guidance, training support, and credibility to help ensure that the Cancer Center continues to provide best-in-class healthcare informed by the latest science.

Our Plan and Timeline

The Mbingo Cancer Center will be developed in three phases:

Phase 1 — Radiation Therapy (Immediate and Urgent) Transport and install a donated linear accelerator in the concrete bunker. With immediate funding, the accelerator could be installed and operational this year.

Anticipated Cost: $545,000 to transport and install donated machine, complete interior outfitting of bunker, and ongoing training for radiology staff.

Goal: First radiation therapy patient treated at Mbingo by January 1, 2027. Up to 2,000 patients will receive treatment annually once technology is operational.

Constructing the radiology bunker at the Mbingo Cancer Center in Cameroon.

Phase 2 — Patient Housing (Planned) Radiation therapy can require up to eight weeks of daily treatment. Patients traveling from greater Cameroon and Central Africa will need a safe and affordable place to stay. We plan to build up to four furnished hostels with 24 beds each, which will give patients the peace of mind they deserve while receiving life-saving cancer care.

Anticipated Cost: $350,000

Phase 3 — The Cancer Center Building (Planned) A built-for-purpose facility will bring all oncology services together in one building:

Anticipated Cost: $1,750,000

Goal: Mbingo Cancer Center building completed and fully operational by 2028.

Ground Floor drawing of the proposed Cancer Center building, with the oncology clinic connected directly to the bunker.

Mbingo Cancer Center Capital Expense Budget

Linac (decommissioning, transportation, installation, commissioning, software, support equipment) - $300,000

Bunker interior - $100,000

Staff training and development (3 years) - $145,000

Phase I - $545,000

Patient hostel construction - $350,000

Phase II - $350,000

Cancer center building construction - $1,000,000

Cancer center furnishings and equipment - $750,000

Phase III - $1,750,000

Programmatic support for patient care - $355,000

Total Campaign Goal - $3,000,000

Lifesaving Care, Made Possible by Life-changing Philanthropy

Your support is urgently needed in Mbingo to bring radiotherapy treatments to Elizabeth and thousands of patients like her.

Please consider making a generous, tax-deductible contribution to move us closer to a world where a cancer diagnosis in Cameroon is no longer a death sentence. Patients with treatable cancers deserve access to life-saving care no matter where they were born.

Here’s how you can help:

Recognizing Transformational Giving

For donors with the wherewithal to support the Mbingo Cancer Center with gifts of $500,000 or more, select naming opportunities are available to recognize donors’ extraordinary generosity.

Level Amount Naming Opportunity

Who We Are

This project is led by an enthusiastic team of volunteer clinicians and engineers who, over the past five years, have worked to construct the Mbingo Cancer Center at the thriving Mbingo Baptist Hospital in northwest Cameroon. We came together with the common goal of making lifesaving cancer treatment accessible in a country that has little to no provision currently, because we believe where you live should not dictate your ability to beat cancer.

Founded as a settlement for patients with Hansen’s disease in 1952 (formerly known as Leprosy), Mbingo Baptist Hospital is the largest of six hospitals run by the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services. Currently, it is a 300-bed referral teaching facility providing high quality, affordable and accessible care to all those in need.

Together We Can Change Lives

Mbingo Baptist Hospital now treats 1,500 cancer patients a year. With a fully operational Cancer Center, we will reach patients who today have nowhere to turn for lifesaving care, including women facing cervical or advanced breast cancer, children with pediatric cancers, and patients with head and neck tumors.

Your support will help save the lives of people who–without the Mbingo Cancer Center–will simply go home to die.

The Mbingo Cancer Center will stand as proof that where you are born need not determine whether you survive — and that when faith, medicine, and partnership unite, the impossible becomes inevitable.

Because where you live shouldn't determine whether you live.

View a short video about the project: https://youtu.be/NlcvWdQfrVc?si=IGqo40fHoER5YSMu

More information can be found on our website: https://www.mbh-radiotherapy.org