To all friends of Good Shepherd Hospital!

A quick review of the year at Good Shepherd:

The budget crisis in Swaziland has had far-reaching effects on health-care at Good Shepherd. (See the international news) GSH is totally dependent on a monthly Government Grant. The amount pledged has been reduced and even this has not been sent for some months. The result is a shortage of many supplies and drugs. A lot of services are negatively affected but I’m happy to say that work goes on in spite of this, and the cheerful Swazi spirit is undaunted! We have just “made a plan!”

HIV prevalence seems to have reached a plateau, thank God. However, the problems are just beginning: We now treat HIV like any other chronic disease but there are an awful number of them out there to treat; some very sick individuals. Funding for HIV drugs is available till 2013 but the Global Fund has hit a problem from thereafter.. Orphan care is going to be the next big thing. Watch that space for us please!

I’m the medical student co-ordinator and I’m proud to say we trained 25 medical students in 2011. Further to this, there were over 10 other volunteers who contributed significantly to the health-care of our patients at Good Shepherd. Thank you to all of you!

In case you are interested, the hospital website is www.goodshepherdhosp.org and that of the eye clinic; www.goodshepherdeyeclinic.org  Check out the new you-tube discussions with med-students!

To the GSH alumni, a reminder that your time at Good Shepherd is highly significant for us (and you I hope!) Here’s an example of what some alumni have been doing:

• Supporting full care of Yvonne, an orphan girl with paraplegia
• Care and schooling of Thobani, the boy with spina bifida
• fund raising for Home Based Care food parcels

Siyabonga!

Dr Jonathan Pons