While some free medical care in available in government facilities, there are often additional costs for drugs or special procedures, and very often complex procedures are beyond the local medical facilities. In such cases the patients come to hospitals like Kumi Hospital a former missionary hospital which has better facilities than many. The complication is that medical must be paid for which is beyond the abilities of the poorer households. For this reason TDT operates a ‘Compassionate Fund’ with the hospital in which social workers assess the ability of the patient to pay for treatment and the balance is paid from the fund, which is strictly limited in its total for the year.
A case study is below with the compassionate fund record and a video with the mother and medical staff, detailing the case of Emmanuel a baby with severe pneumonia who spent time recovering at Kumi Hospital
