Summer Literacy Program
Thanks to support by Johnson & Johson, over 285 of our students spent the summer teaching basic reading and math skills, HIV/AIDS awareness, and improved agricultural practices to the surrounding community.
Glenn C. Olsen Primary General Hospital  Entrance to Glenn C. Olsen Hospital
Outpatient Care Obstetric and Gynecological Services HIV/AIDS Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center
The Glenn C. Olsen Memorial Primary General Hospital is a state-of-the-art facility located in one of Project Mercy's Compounds. It has been open and in full-operation since 2004. To date the 54-bed hospital has provided care for well over 16,000 patients. Project Mercy believes the medical care and preventative education programs will significantly help reduce the health problems of this area while offering the desperately needed public health information to the community.
The Glen C. Olsen Hospital offers the following : · Diagnostic services · Surgical Ward · Pediatric Ward · Obstetric and Gynecological services · Dental clinic · Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center (VCT) for HIV/AIDS · Maternal and Child Heath Department (MCH)
The hospital is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Normal outpatient hours are from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Friday, although consultation time with the outpatients extends considerably later. Beyond 5:00 P.M., only emergency patients are seen. There are always doctors, nurses, and technicians, and surgical staff on call. The hospital continues to care for the poorest of the poor, those people who have never had medical/hospital services available to them. One only needs to see the people lined up outside the gates at 8:00 A.M. to understand the great need for a hospital such as this in the Yetebon area.
 Patient waiting area
Outpatient Care As previously mentioned, the number of persons visiting the hospital has overwhelmed the facility. There are always more patients present than can be seen on any given day. The total number of new patients seen in 2005 was 12,197. In addition, there was nearly 4,000 repeat patients .
The top cause for outpatient visits is peptic ulcer disease, most likely caused from the high fiber, highly spiced diet of the people in this area. This indicates a major need for preventative education.
The second leading cause of outpatient visits is respiratory tuberculosis. Project Mercy is quite certain that the living conditions of people in the area is responsible for the large numbers of respiratory tuberculosis. Almost everyone lives in thatched-roof mud huts with dirt floors. Generally, the huts have no windows or chimneys, so there is no ventilation for indoor cooking fires. In addition, the families bring their animals into the house with them overnight to protect them from predators. This, too, can contribute to unsanitary conditions for human habitation.
The third leading cause of outpatient visits is parasites. The people’s most basic living conditions, in addition to using water from the streams, living with their animals, and not using sanitary food preparation methods are cause for the parasites.
 One of the Operating Rooms
Inpatient Care Our hospital has been a vital resource to the surrounding community since it opened. Not only have we treated life-threatening illnesses, but we have also improved the quality of life for community members. As the tables below illustrate, congestive heart failure (in the Medical Ward), benign prostatic hyperplasia (in the Surgical Ward), pneumonia (in the Pediatrics Ward), and having normal deliveries (for the OB/GYN Ward) were the leading causes of hospital admission in 2005. The table below illustrates the top five reasons for admission to each ward.
TOP REASON FOR WARD ADMISSION
 Delivery Room
Obstetric and Gynecological Services Many hospitals in Ethiopia have a difficult time attracting mothers to deliver their babies in the hospital. Most of the mothers in our area also seem to prefer to give birth at home with traditional birth assistants (usually the older women of the village). According to USAID, only about 5 percent of Ethiopian births take place at health institutions and 6 percent are supervised by health professionals. However, the hospital is receiving more and more area mothers, who choose to have their babies under our medical care.
A number of women come to our hospital due to complications with their pregnancies. Of the 373 deliveries in 2005, 271 were considered abnormal—due to obstructed labor, a ruptured uterus, or the necessity of a C-section.
In addition, the OB/GYN Ward provides a number of other services including hysterectomies, mastectomies, etc.
Maternal and Child Health Department All of the MCH Department services are free of charge to encourage women to visit the hospital during their pregnancy, for their childbirth, and for the baby’s immunizations. It is our goal to improve the health of pregnant mothers and their young children. By encouraging the area women to seek prenatal and postnatal care, we believe the survival rate of children in the community will increase.
The free MCH services include: · Antenatal care of the mother and child · Postnatal care of the mother and child · Immunizations · Family Planning
Due to high unemployment, underemployment, the threat of famine, and overcrowding in Ethiopia, it is critical to find a method of reducing the average family size. In Ethiopia, family size averages about seven children, contributing to the 2 percent rise in population each year. According to 2000 Department of Health Services in Ethiopia, 32 percent of women of childbearing age do not want to have any more children and 36 percent wish to delay the next birth by two years or more. We hope that our family planning services will help reduce the size of the family and increase the welfare of the community members.
HIV/AIDS Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center Our Environmental Health Officer is licensed to administer HIV/AIDS tests. If the test returns a positive result, the Health Officer is able to counsel them on the next step in the progression of the virus. In addition, the Officer is able to recommend various lifestyle alterations.
In 2005, Johnson & Johnson partnered with Project Mercy to provide training to over 60 Ethiopian doctors on how to administer the drug Miconazole MAT to HIV/AIDS patients. The training program was televised nationally and aired at primetime in all of the country’s four languages.
Miconazole MAT is a derivation of a drug produced by Tibotec Vicro N.V. It is used to improve the quality of life for HIV/AIDS patients by treating oro-pharyngeal candidiasis (OPC), a common and very painful infection of the mouth and throat of people with HIV/AIDS. By administering this drug, the pain is reduce, improving the patient’s ability to eat.
A big thank you to Johnson & Johnson for the training and for the donation of a very generous 33,000 doses of Miconazole Mat!
Pharmacy The Glenn C. Olsen Pharmacy provides both impatient and outpatient services. The pharmacy distributes supplies to each ward, laboratory, and x-ray department based on their needs. The pharmacy is able to dispense all drug classes. Antibiotics and gastro-intestinal remedies are the most frequently dispensed.
Community Health Services All of the primary healthcare assistants (PHCAs) are trained in environmental health and hygiene. They have received over 100 hours of training in the following subjects:
· Housing · Vector control · Solid and liquid waste · Environmental sanitation · Water-born diseases · Communicable disease control · Malaria prevention and control
Under the direction of the Hospital Environmental Officer, the trained staff are instructing others in the community on these subjects. This campaign will spread knowledge about healthy lifestyles and help to prevent the spread of disease.
Health Education Classes Health education is an essential component of the environmental health activities. Daily classes are held in the hospital as well as in outreach sites around the community. Since the beginning of these classes roughly 10,500 people have attended. The different class topics include:
· Environmental health · Personal hygiene · HIV/AIDS · Housing · Disease control · Use of antenatal care · Trachoma control methods · Methods of communicable disease prevention
A word from Hospital Administrator Gary Ifft: “We have now seen over 15,000 new patients since opening a year and a half ago. Due to the number of patients each day, outpatient needs are given appointments for three to four days later. We have tried to refer them to another medical facility but they refuse to go- they want to be treated by our staff. If our surgeon refers surgery patients to another hospital, they simply go home at get worse. He can’t stand to see that so he and the OR staff literally work day and night. As a few or our medical staff have left us, we are blessed to have a new general practitioner doctor join our medical staff- she is a young female doctor named Dr. Saba.
One of the main reasons the hospital was built was to provide opportunity for treatment for the poorest of the poor- it is doing just that. Our OB Department is full-to-overflowing where sometime we have to put beds in the hallways. Our surgeon was teasing our obstetrician that he is turning our hospital into a maternity hospital.”
 Line outside the hospital
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