Welcome

The Getu Foundation (GF) provides information concerning health care and education in Zambia and other African countries. In the Netherlands the foundation works to raise funds from individuals and companies for innovative projects in these areas. Our first project is the Lusaka Health Institute (LHI), school of nursing.

Needed: investment in human capital

In Zambia 20% of the population is HIV-positive; AIDS patients occupy 80% of the hospital beds. Information, patient care and administering anti-retroviral medicines (ARV's) can save millions of lives, and can only be executed by well-trained, medical staff. That is why the Getu Foundation strives to increase facilities for health care education, starting with the training of nurses.

Zambia suffers from a severe shortage of medical professionals. There are 600 medical doctors registered in the whole country (pop. 11 mln.), of which 33% are foreigners. Also the number of nurses is far less then required to maintain basic medical service. According to the Ministry of Health (MoH) the country has 8,000 nurses registered where 16,000 are needed. In addition, the medical sector suffers from the consequences of AIDS; every year 3.5% of the nurses in Zambia die of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. Moreover, many doctors and nurses move abroad in pursuit of better working conditions (the brain drain).

Staffing shortages result in increased workloads, low motivation and morale, and deterioration in the quality of services in the health sector. More than 50% of rural health centers have only one qualified staff member. Hospitals and newly constructed facilities do not have enough health workers to scale up and expand the delivery of essential health services (MoH, February 2006).

LHI, our first project, will ‘deliver’ about 80 registered nurses a year. The school combines modern education methods with a business approach. Objectives are: affordable education, strengthening of the health care system, and fighting the effects of the brain drain (Zambian teachers; sponsored students will work at least 3 years in Zambia). We support the Millennium Development Goals, in particular goal number six: ‘Combat HIV, malaria and other diseases’.

We, at the Getu Foundation, hope that we can count on your assistance for this initiative and for similar projects in the future.