Mercy’s mission: bringing accessible care where it’s needed most

Many African children are brought up by their grandmothers, as was Mercy Kafotokoza in Malawi. As a nine-year-old girl, she made a promise to her grandmother that she would become a nurse when she grew up. Kafotokoza made this promise just after her uncle had tragically died from a seemingly innocuous infection. He had had a tooth pulled without anaesthesia and the wound would not stop bleeding. Her uncle was rushed to hospital 50 kilometres away. But first, her grandmother had to sell a few chickens so she could pay for the transport. When he finally reached the hospital on the back of a farm cart, it was too late and the infection had spread. Kofotokoza’s heartbroken grandmother blamed herself for the loss of her son. She moved to the city and became a maid. And she paid for the education and nursing training of her granddaughter who fulfilled her promise and became a nurse.

Avoidable

Kafotokoza’s grandmother died recently; she was 97 years old. ‘We spoke on the phone almost every day,’ says Kafotokoza. But her grandmother got to see the success of Wandikweza, the NGO Kafotokoza founded in 2016 to bring medical care closer to the inhabitants of Malawi. It made a big impression on Kafotokoza when a woman died in front of her eyes while giving birth to twins in hospital. ‘It was avoidable, just like my uncle’s death. The heavily pregnant woman would have had to walk many miles to the hospital. And the hike had taken it out of her.’

After this new tragedy, she thought, this has got to change, everyone should have the right to accessible medical care, close to home. But this is not available to everyone in Malawi. Eighty-four percent of the population live in remote areas where there is no medical help, and most lack the money to pay for care. The country has shockingly high maternal and child mortality rates. At least forty out of every thousand children under five die. The majority of deaths could be prevented with the right medical care.

Mopeds

The creative, solution-oriented Kafotokoza quit her permanent hospital job. She developed a care model in which a mobile medical team provides care in remote villages. The medical team holds eight consultation days a month at different locations, treating around three hundred patients a day. Complaints range from pneumonia and diarrhoea to STDs. The development of children up to the age of five is carefully monitored. The team can test for HIV and malaria and provide medication and contraception.

‘We work closely with village communities,’ says Kafotokoza. ‘We do not make assumptions about the problems we’ll find, but we look at the actual situation.’ For example, she put together a network of locals who can detect medical complaints at an early stage. There are also ‘nurses on bikes’ who ride around on behalf of Wandikweza, making home visits to pregnant women and their children up to the age of five. In emergencies, a nurse can always be on site within 30 minutes. Maternal and child mortality have dropped dramatically since the arrival of these nurses on mopeds.

Wandikweza is growing exponentially and has already helped more than 350,000 people. Changemaker Kafotokoza, a married mother of three, now heads an organisation of 130 employees. But she also takes care of herself: ‘I get up at 4 am. I start by meditating; that keeps me in balance.’