On May 24, 2013, Zewditu Memorial Hospital launched a new 3.1 million dollar outpatients department annex.
Kuma Demeksa, the outgoing mayor of Addis Abeba; Kebede Worku (PhD), state minister for health; Eric Gosby, US global AIDS coordinator and Donald Booth, US ambassador to Ethiopia, attended the ribbon cutting ceremony, during which the federal police brass band performed inside the hospital’s compound.
The new facility was financed by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), through the Centre for Disease Control (CDC).
The country director of the PEPFAR programme at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Solomon Zedwu (MD), was given a standing ovation in absentia for his role in facilitating the provision of the funds and the establishment of the department. Solomon was a lieutenant colonel at the US Air Force Reserve, until 2012, and has served in different capacities at the US Air Force, since 2000.
The department has a two-storey building, with – 16 bedrooms, a laboratory and ultrasound facilities. It will provide adult and pediatric Antiretroviral Treatment (ART), family planning services and pre-cancer checkups. The hospital had 200 bedrooms previously.
While the hospital’s main directive is the prevention of mother-to-child HIV/AIDS transmission, the number of carriers seeking medical care at the hospital has now reached 6,500 – up from 6,000 when the hospital started construction, in 2010. Zewditu is the largest ART service provider in the country. It was also the first hospital to start the ART pilot project, back in 2003, with CDC-Ethiopia, for a nominal fee, making it a free service in 2005.
There are over 290,000 people receiving the ART at 900 different sites across the country, according to Ambassador Eric Goosby, the US Global AIDS Coordinator, in charge of all US Government international HIV/AIDS efforts.
The new department anticipates at least 350 patients a day, Goosby said.
“We will increase our human power and the department will also be our research centre on HIV prevention, from mother to child, at a national level,” said Ayalew Frew (MD), the hospital’s medical director.
With the ART service now shifting to the new facility, the space it has vacated at the old building will be used for other hospital services.
“We were facing serious space shortages,” said Aster Shewa (MD), supervision head of the ART department at the hospital.
With ART in mind, the PEPFAR is also funding similar works in seven other hospitals across the country, including – Shashemene, Arba Minch, Adama, Dire Dawa, Harer, Bahr Dar and Gonder. The Hawassa project is expected to be inaugurated in the near future.
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