Medicine for Africa is dedicated to improve the general health care situation of select African countries through direct and indirect involvement.
The projects of Medicine for Africa will create an important and long lasting imprint on the selected countries’ future.

Objectives

1. Combine preventive, therapeutic and clinical medical services; establish contacts on both academic and economic levels.

2. Build and equip new health care facilities and update existing ones.

3. Train local medical personnel via foreign medical personnel and by winning back expatriates - develop academic contacts with US and European universities.

4. Promote telemedicine - for teaching medical students, and to support rural medical care centers and remotely located physicians with diagnostic advice or second medical opinions from primary health care centers.

5. Establish 'Child Care Centers' (CCC) for HIV/AIDS orphans - to provide health care and basic education, as well as vocational training in income generating skills (e.g. sewing, carpentry, etc.).

6. Develop medical business contacts between US and EU corporations and African companies for promoting local economies and thus improving health care services.

7. Mobile Hospital Units (MHUs) - which will bring health care to the patient.

Introduction

In 1913, Dr. Albert Schweitzer founded his famous hospital on the bank of the Ogooué River in western Gabon, making him one of the first European physicians who became involved in Africa and who felt responsible for providing African people with the best medical care he was able to provide at that time.

Over the years, non-profit organisations (NPOs) such as the International Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and a large number of private or semi-private foundations, have become involved in an increasing number of African countries. However, either their financial situation or their internal organizational set-up allows only limited possibilities for alleviating the countries' problems on a more permanent basis.

Now, in the year of 2008, 95 years later, it is time again that a new group of strong advocates who believe in the future of Africa and the well-being of its people, will start a new wave of health-related interventions in a continent where diseases ravage the populations, killing millions of innocent people who could be saved by today's medical knowledge. In less time than anyone might be able to perceive today, Africa could very well become the world's bread basket, if it were to receive more attention and help from developed countries. Thus, as globalization accelerates, and the interdependence of nations becomes more and more obvious, the developed world, which has valuable knowledge and resources in all medical fields at its disposal, should become more involved in this continent.

Over the last few decades, health care in America has become more and more expensive to its citizens. This has been caused partially by new expensive medical procedures, but has often also originated in the need of excessive testing procedures that are needed in order to prevent physicians from becoming a target for malpractice suits.

Expanding medical coverage, provided by American companies and physicians, to foreign countries, can alleviate the incremental operating costs at home and become a successful advertisement tool for the quality of American medical services. Furthermore, this strategy would be considered extremely ethical and by helping the African countries, it could provide the developed countries and medical institutions that become involved, with a new and efficient way of "outsourcing" knowhow and of making better use of their medical equipment.

Among the most important aspects of improving the general health care situation are efforts to increase the number of local medical personnel who can serve their people. However, an important prerequisite consists of the availability of a sufficiently large number of medical teachers, which most countries lack badly, thus delaying the chance of meeting the above mentioned goal in the foreseeable future. 'MfA - MDs for Teaching' has taken on the challenge to find a way to speed up the training of local medical personnel in a variety of ways.

Thus, Dr. Tom C. Garven has taken on the task to develop two major projects -

'Medicine for Africa' (MfA) and MfA - MDs for Teaching

- which are intended to help all sides involved in receiving maximum results for their country, for their people, for their investors, for their donors, and for all other parties involved !

If you are interested in any of these projects - in whichever way -
we urge you to contact us for further information.