Day's Diary

July 18, 2007 ~ Dumisani

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Dumisani is a doctor who has been stationed at Embangweni Mission Hospital and was the head of staff until three years ago when he left for South Africa to train as a pediatrician. His dream is to come back and train others in good pediatrics. Dumisani is really an amazing young doctor and a hope for the future in Malawi.

He saw the great need for pediatric training. There is not one trained pediatrician in all of northern Malawi. There are only eight in the entire country, two in Nkhoma Synod and six in Blantyre. This in itself is amazing when you consider that of the 12 million people in Malawi, almost half of them under the age of fifteen, which means that most of them would be seen by a pediatrician in the US. Consider that one in twenty children born in Malawi dies before the age of five, most of those deaths coming before the child is two, and you see the great need for well trained pediatricians. To think that there are only eight in the entire country and none in the north boggles the mind, or at least it did Dumisani’s as he treated children in the hospital everyday and watched many of them die. But he had a hard choice to make. He was offered two opportunities — one to train in the US and the other to train in the UK. Both offered him a salary and housing while he trained, but he turned them both down and choose instead to go to South Africa to train, where he would have to pay for his education. He had enough money for the first of the three and a half years of the program, but he believed this was a step of faith he had to take.

He made this decision for three important reasons. First, he had seen too many of his colleagues go to a northern hemisphere country with every intention of coming back to practice medicine in Malawi, only to decided that the salary, the lifestyle, the education for their children and the opportunities for the future were too great to walk away from, so they stayed in the country of their training instead of returning to Malawi. He had already experienced those temptations with the schooling offers presented with a salary while he studied and he didn’t want to run the risk his friends had. But then an even greater consideration was the environment of training in South Africa. While the university hospital is much like any of the hospitals in the northern hemisphere with the latest technology and well equipped facilities, much of the field work is done in areas with resources much like Malawi, so the educational experience translates well to the needs of his own country. He says that everyday he sees things being done that he knows he will be able to put into practice for little or no money in Malawi and see great benefits for the children and the hospital. The third reason was a very personal one. His wife Mary is a nurse and a trained midwife. In South Africa, she could earn her masters in nursing, specializing in infant care, and they would be a team to work together in Malawi. So that is what they have done. Dumisani has just half a year to go before his exams and Mary is writing her master’s dissertation, to finish in January. And God has provided for their funding for all the schooling! Their step of faith, regarded by many as foolishness, has been rewarded. He says he can never express the depth of gratitude he has for three churches in the US who have sponsored him: one in Florida, one in Texas and one in Virginia. He as never met the pastors or the members of the congregations, but they are on his heart and in his prayers of thanksgiving every day. They have been God’s answer to his prayers and he and Mary are profoundly grateful.

They will be returning to Emgangweni in April of 2008. Dumisani says with a smile that he has stamped on his back “Made in Malawi. For Malawi. Return to Malawi.” Malawi is his blood and his life. When asked what he wants for the future, that broad smile of his becomes even bigger. His desire is to train others to give excellent medical care to the children of northern Malawi. He hopes to convince the Synod of Livingstonia to allow him to develop a training program in each of the Synod hospitals. He says he doesn’t think that will be hard to do, since they are the ones who encouraged him to pursue his studies in the first place. He would love to travel among the hospitals and see patients, and in the process, educate the medical staffs on what to look for and what protocols to follow when treating children.

Dumisani got his start in a pastor’s home in Malawi.  His grandfather was Rev. John Wilford Kamanga of Livingstonia Synod. He and his wife raised Dumisani when his father died and his mother had to work full time. He says it was in his grandparent’s home that he learned to serve God and to serve Malawi. It was there that he got his passion for learning and his dreams of becoming a doctor were encouraged. His commitment to Malawi is rare among the Malawian doctors training outside the country. He is a blessing for the future of Malawi.