A clinic for folks who fish

Village leaders and staff pose for a photo during the opening of the Fisherfolks Clinic in Tanzania. (Photo provided by Bob Bentley)

A church-supported ministry opened a new medical clinic in northern Tanzania recently.
Appropriately named Fisherfolks Clinic, the facility will serve predominantly Muslim fishing villages on the Indian Ocean.  IHCF (International Health Care Foundation) African Christian Hospitals oversees the clinic. The Searcy, Ark.-based ministry serves more than 70,000 patients per year in seven locations in Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria, said Tom Carr, executive director.
In Tanzania, “the only way in and out of these villages is by foot, bicycle or boat,” Carr said. “These isolated villages will be able to load their sick into boats and bring the boats up the coastline to the clinic, where they can be treated. This will be much better than the current situation — in which the sick are carried many miles over rough paths to receive care.”
In its first two weeks of operation, the clinic treated more than 40 patients per day, Carr said.
Bob and Michele Bentley are working at the clinic in Tanzania, providing leadership during its start-up phase, Carr said. Bob Bentley is associate minister for the Singing Oaks Church of Christ in Denton, Texas. He also is an accountant, and his wife is a nurse. Both speak Swahili.
IHCF seeks partners to provide volunteer medical personnel and finances for the clinic. For more information, contact Carr at (501) 268-9511 or send him an e-mail through the ministry’s website.
The ministry put together this video showing the anatomy of a mission trip to one of its clinics in northern Ghana:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJlN1VGab9A&feature=player_embedded

• Feedback
  I attended Harding long ago. One of my friends became a medical missionary.

  Martha Stanford

  November, 18 2010