The Tabaka Mission Hospital was built some forty years ago initially as a child birth centre, run by the Camillian order. It then gradually expanded to offer other health care services including a nurse training unit. It is located in north-western Kenya, in Kisii county, one of the most economically disadvantaged areas in the country, with a high HIV prevalence rate. According to Fr. Elphas, who runs the hospital, “they have been experiencing many financial challenges over the years making it difficult for them to run the daily hospital operations”.

Thanks to the Tabaka Mission Hospital’s Friends association, set up four years ago with the aim of supporting the hospital, today this facility has been able benefit from their assistance. The hospital’s pediatric ward has been named after ‘Alice Magnani”, a young athlete of the Italian national tamburello team, a volunteer at Caritas and at the association “Il Volo” addressing juvenile rheumatic diseases, with which she also had battled. Over the past three years the Friends of the Tabaka Mission Hospital collected more than 12 tons of hospital material that were delivered in three containers, namely inter alia mechanical hospital beds, operating theatre equipment, electrocardiograph with cabinet, gynaecological examination bed, infusion/intravenous drip stands, wheelchairs, medical apparatus for ozone therapy, autoclaves, as well as firefighting items like overalls and safety helmets, mechanical equipment and vehicle maintenance equipment . Both the President of the Association, Cav. Uff, Dino Magnani and Fr. Elphas and his team, are very grateful to the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta to Kenya for assisting them in importing the three mentioned containers for humanitarian purposes. The burocratic-administrative process was spearheaded by the Chargé d’Affaires of the Order in Kenya, Dr. Franco De Paoli, assisted by Kate Freight, invaluable import freight and clearing agents. As a mission hospital, the Tabaka facility are called upon to serve the needy and the sick in the neighbouring community offering treatment to patients who, due to their extreme poverty, do not have the possibility of being medically insured, let alone pay for the medicines they need for their recovery.

The Embassy of the Order to Kenya feels humbled to have been of support to such a noble cause and to have assisted in getting the third container to the Tabaka Hospital in time for Christmas 2022!