Life at St Luke’s continues and we are slowly making improvements to the hospital and our facilities and service to the community, thanks to your generosity through prayer and giving, it is only through the long-term commitment from USPG that we are able to help the people of Milo and the surrounding areas.

There has been quite a lot of building work at St Luke’s over the past few months. You may remember that the dispensary at Ludewa was shut down completely after a severe fire. Thankfully, due to much hard work, it is now up and running again, although it still has some furniture damage, which we plan to renovate further in the future. Expansion of Ludewa Dispensary and Njombe Health Centre started during 2004. We have commissioned builders to construct maternity wings for these two facilities through funds donated by friends from England. Through your kind donations, we have also been able to purchase an ultra sound scanner and an X-ray machine. These have been installed and are working well. We have also recently acquired a computer which we are slowly learning how to use. To improve our water supply, a new intake for piped water was built towards the end of 2004. We have now started getting a supply of water from this extra source. Work has also started on harvesting precious rain water.

Education is the key to growth. Our library is growing, thanks in the most part to a number of up-to-date reference books and booklets donated by the World Health Organisation. During the year we continued to receive more and more of their publications. We also now receive the Nursing Times journal. Although self-learning from books is important, we recognise that this needs to be backed up by training and teaching. Due to limited resources, most of the nurses and doctors receive their training from other hosnitals in Tanzania but St Luke’s still tries to organise as much as it can 'in-house'.