Kijabe Hospital // Kijabe, Kenya
Founded in 1915, Kijabe Hospital is a non-profit hospital located in Kijabe, Kenya, a rural area located about 65 kilometers northwest of Nairobi within the Rift Valley escarpment. It was initially named Theodora Hospital after US President Theodore Roosevelt who visited and set in place the cornerstone of the first building on a trip to Africa.

Kijabe’s nutrition program accepts donations of RUTF and uses it in its outpatient program treating malnutrition. The product is particularly helpful in Kijabe’s smaller satellite clinics in Marira and Naivasha.

Nutritionist Stephen Kenyanjui said, “This timely donation is exactly what we needed. Many people do not realize that young lives hang in the balance and getting children the right food at the right time can be a lifesaver.”

In addition, some of the RUTF is shared as an emergency intervention in neighboring Tanzania at Selian Lutheran Hospital under the direction of Dr. Stephen Swanson.

In regard to the urgent need for the RUTF, Dr. Swanson wrote:

“We are averaging rates of 20-25% SAM (Severe Acute Malnutrition) among the children hospitalized at Selian Lutheran Hospital, and probably 20% with moderate malnutrition. Almost all are less than age 5. I’m guessing we probably have 200 – 300 kids a year with SAM that are hospitalized. Because our outreach/prevention program is in some dire need of leadership and organization, I think we could easily triple that number of kids if there were an effective outpatient program for malnutrition management with a community outreach and post-hospital discharge follow-up component. As I mentioned, the government is not providing RUTF nearly to the level that we need. We have just hired a nurse aide to be in charge of feeding for these kids, doing daily weights/vitals, and helping to teach the mothers about nutrition. My hunch is that this program will continue to grow, as word gets out. Our rains have also been delayed, so if they don’t come soon, we will continue to see more and more admissions for malnutrition.”