A Case Study of the Vanga Health System in the Congo

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The Vanga Hospital began in a rural area of western Congo in 1920. Beginning in 1961 the hospital grew into a comprehensive and sustainable Christian health service run by the Congolese church in partnership with a missionary staff. The health system includes: (1) A 400 bed multi-specialty teaching hospital (2) A school for training nurse practitioners and nurse midwives (3) A widespread system of improving community health through dialogue and community initiatives (4) A decentralized network of rural health centers that make primary health care services accessible to the entire population of 250,000 in the catchment area
(5) A family medicine residency for Congolese family physicians (6) A team approach to caring for the whole person (7) An integrated approach to coping with the HIV-AIDS epidemic

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