Karen Brown will be playing Santa Claus this month at home — and again in January far, far from home.

Karen Brown (center left in dark sunglasses), administrator for the Ob-Gyn Division of International Women’s Health, poses with CIDRZ employees at the Kalingalinga Clinic in Zambia.

“Because Zambia is a country with limited resources, the government-funded health-care system faces major financial challenges,” Brown says. “One way in which this translates is through task-shifting, where nurses perform many tasks that would normally be done by physicians. Unfortunately, this also translates to the inability to provide adequate medical supplies and equipment.

“The nurses primarily are employed by the Ministry of Health, and most simply cannot afford to purchase for themselves one of the most basic tools of health-care delivery — a stethoscope,” she explains. “We thought collecting donated stethoscopes from home would be a good way to help these nurses in Zambia.”

Elizabeth Stringer, M.D., associate professor of OB/GYN, says provision of good health care to patients in the sub-Saharan African country is difficult with the limited number of health-care workers and supplies. Stringer has been living with her family in Zambia since 2001 and works side-by-side with Zambian health-care workers to provide quality care.

“Essential medications frequently run out, and all sorts of medical equipment — including stethoscopes — are in short supply,” Stringer says. “In an effort to improve the care of the patients we see, we’re hoping for a great Christmas present from UAB Hospital to the University of Zambia Teaching Hospital. The stethoscopes will be given to nurses working in government primary-care clinics throughout Lusaka and at the Teaching Hospital.”

International Women’s Health is accepting donations of used stethoscopes through the end of the year to help re-supply health-care workers in the country. International Women’s Health, in conjunction with CIDRZ, conducts research and service programs in the country, focusing on maternal-to-child HIV transmission, HIV/AIDS treatment cervical cancer, tuberculosis, hepatitis and measles.

Helping from home
UAB has 37 employees working at CIDRZ, which employs more than 600 Zambians locally. A major component of the center’s mission is increasing health-care capacity.

“We provide training for nurses and work closely in off-site clinics with them,” Brown says.

Brown and her co-workers help carry out that mission here at home in CIDRZ’s administrative office, which was formalized in 2007 to provide support to the faculty and staff in Zambia. All money earmarked for CIDRZ — whether it’s from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, charitable foundations or the National Institutes of Health — comes through the office here on campus.

“We function like any other administrative office for any other department; it’s just that our research and service site is in Zambia,” Brown says.

Collecting stethoscopes is their way of doing a little bit more to help out, she says.
Brown is looking forward to making her return trip to Lusaka next month. She says it’s a beautiful city, especially this time of year at the beginning of the rainy season, and that the people are extremely friendly.

“We Southerners are famous for our hospitality, but it’s nothing compared to what you experience in Zambia,” she says. “The people are so gracious and kind. They ask how you are and how your family is doing. If they have met you once before they treat you as an old friend.”

To donate a stethoscope or for more information on CIDRZ, call 934-7953. You also can learn more about CIDRZ at www.cidrz.org.