St Martins' Hospital, Malindi

The hospital is located in Malindi, a town in Mangochi District, in the Southern Region of Malawi. Malindi is located approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi), by road, north of Mangochi, where the district headquarters are located.^[2] This is about 215 kilometres (134 mi), by road, north of Blantyre, the largest city in Malawi's Southern Region.^[3]

This hospital is under the jurisdiction of the Lakeshore Health Department of the Diocese of Southern Malawi–Upper Shire, a component of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.^[1]

St Martin’s caters to a population of approximately 40,000 people in Malindi and neighboring settlements. In addition to the hospital facilities, a mobile medical unit is available to take services to needy, distant communities.^[1]

The hospital has the following departments ^[1]

• Maternity Ward
• Pediatric Ward
• Male Ward
• Female Ward
• Outpatient Department
• Operating Theatre (out of action).

The hospital was founded in 1898, as a clinic, staffed by one nurse, who cared for sick missionaries and their families. Over the next five years the hospital expanded enough so that it could accommodate 305 patients per month.^[1]

By 2014, the bed capacity had increased to 50 and although there was no doctor, there were five capable clinical officers and a team of nurses and patient assistants, who kept the hospital in motion. The hospital runs a daily antiretroviral clinic, as well as regular antenatal, family planning, and vaccination clinics. The operating room is used for caesarean sections, female sterilizations, hernia repairs, and incision and drainage operations.^[4]

As of November 2018, the hospital had grown to 100 in-patient beds. There is currently no doctor at this hospital and it is instead run by the two Clinical Officers Mr Peter Moffat and Mr Harvey Likapa.^[5]