University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka

I took the following photos when I accompanied my doctor friend Esteban to UTH where he volunteers once a week. He usually works in the Filter Clinic (the hospital’s emergency room). It is the so-called “low cost” part of the clinic, meaning that, on one hand, the treatment is relatively cheap and affordable, even for less affluent Zambians. On the other hand, it means that the conditions in which they are treated in are appalling: Wheelchairs are held together by string and duct tape, the guerneys have broken wheels, often there’s a lack of beds and sometimes the nurses runs out of sterile needles and can’t put in IVs. The hospital is understaffed. There is only one defibrillator in the whole clinic. One of the doctors I talked to told me that about 80% of all the patients who get admitted to the Filter Clinic have full-blown AIDS: They suffer from opportunistic infections (such as tuberculosis) and malignant syndroms, they are severely undernourished and are most likely going to die soon. Hospitals in sub-saharan Africa are simply overrun with AIDS patients – and lack the facilities, the funds and the staff to properly care for them.