Malawian NGO provides food for 250 patients prior to New Year

CGTN

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Getting a decent and nutritious meal is one of the biggest problems in hospitals among patients, who are required to have an extra budget to get a proper meal that can sustain them.

In Malawi, this is not exceptional. People from rural communities often fail to sustain themselves with proper meals because of lack of funds in hospitals.

According to Sam Kambawa, a patient who was admitted at Chiradzulu District Hospital in early December, He thanked the government for its efforts in feeding patients at the hospital, but he however attributed lack of various meals as one of the biggest challenges that many patients face at the hospital.

In an interview with Xinhua, Kambawa said that there is a need for hospital authorities to engage in supplying necessary meals to the patients in order for them to have a productive stay at the hospital. He said that most people in the rural communities can not afford to buy the good food needed for their recovery hence a need for the authorities to do more.

This became a great concern to Campaign for Health Education, Sanitation and Hygiene (CAHESH), a non-governmental organization that mainly focuses on wellbeing of marginalized individuals in many facets of life.

According to the project coordinator for CAHESH, Lucy Nkhoma, their organization organized the cookery event at Chiradzulu District Hospital with an aim to outreach the people in the community with a daily gift that could be remembered for a lifetime.

Nkhoma said that the initiative was organized to express their love towards people who may not be able to feed themselves decent meals. She also said that being a period of Christmas and New Year celebration, it was necessary for the patients to have a different experience.

"We would like to thank our partners for their support in supplying us with funds, food items and energy in trying to make this thing happen. Today we have fed the whole hospital, and we are very sure that next time we are going to do even more.

"As citizens, we should not only be depending on the government to make a change, it is the responsibility of every Malawian to ensure that his or her neighbor is happy, this is the sole reason why we organized this program," she said.

Patients at the hospital applauded the organization for coming up with this timely initiative. According to them, it was a great experience having a hot plate of delicious meals. Statistics showed that over 250 patients were fed on the day.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency