Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Here is a story about three hospitals.
One is a shimmering $190 million, five-story, brick-and-glass suburban beauty. One is a collection of single-story, rusted-roof shelters connected by dirt paths.
And the third is a trio of railroad shipping containers equipped with the basics: exam rooms, flush toilets, pharmacy, lab, X-ray and operating room, water purification system and a 60-kilowatt diesel-fueled generator.
The first hospital, Methodist Women's at 192nd Street and West Dodge Road, is a staging ground. In its massive lot sit the three shipping containers of the third hospital, dubbed "clinic-in-a-can."
A Methodist family practice doctor is trying to raise enough money to ship and staff this clinic-in-a-can to his native South Sudan, where it would significantly improve upon the current "hospital," which is so ill-equipped and so understaffed that when an Omaha team of doctors and nurses arrives for an annual visit, they can't perform simple surgeries.
So the clinic-in-a-can would be the de facto hospital for Kajo Keji, which is both a city and an Ohio-size region south of Juba, the capital of the newly sovereign Republic of South Sudan.
Dr. Joseph Dumba of Omaha, who grew up in Kajo Keji, hopes eventually to build a more substantial hospital. This is a $2 million dream that his northwest Omaha church, Covenant Presbyterian, is pursuing through a newly created foundation called The Healing Kadi.
But until then, Dumba is trying to raise $65,000 to ship the containers to Africa and another $150,000 to staff it year-round.
An open house Aug. 28 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Methodist Women's Hospital parking lot will give Omahans a glimpse at what this portable hospital could do.
"If we have a clean place like this," Dumba said, "(surgeons) can bring in equipment themselves."
The containers are clean, spacious and designed with windows and spots for window air-conditioning units. There are sinks, exam tables, cabinetry and the usual accoutrements Omahans would see in their own doctor's offices.
Covenant Presbyterian purchased the clinic for about $100,000 thanks to a bequest from a former church member and Methodist lab tech. It was delivered a month ago to the Methodist Women's parking lot.
Covenant Presbyterian also is working with Dumba (pronounced DOOM-ba) and Methodist Health System in promoting the cause.
Covenant Presbyterian largely underwrites the annual trip Dumba and others have made to South Sudan since 2007. The church also promotes and sponsors other such medical missions in countries like Nicaragua and Belize.
The Rev. Kevin McDonald, executive pastor of Covenant Presbyterian, and Dumba can rattle off dramatic stories of medical intervention and rescue that saved the lives of children:
»The Sudanese boy with a heart defect who couldn't walk 10 feet without stopping to breathe. The church paid for him to travel to India for surgery and the following year he was playing soccer.
»The Sudanese toddler girl "who was pretty much dead" with cerebral malaria, Dumba said, recovered once he put her on an IV for fluids and anti-malaria medication for five days.
The next Covenant-sponsored mission to South Sudan is in March.
But Dumba hopes to get the containers out of Omaha and on their 9,000-mile rail-boat-and-truck journey much sooner.
Dumba said he's in talks with doctors nationwide and hopes to arrange a schedule of retirees and other volunteers who could serve short stints in South Sudan to keep the hospital open year-round.
Right now on Dumba's annual visits, he and his team will see an average 1,000 patients a day. He said the existing hospital in Kajo Keji is "the best thing you can do in this area." He said it admits 150 patients a day who sleep anywhere, including corridors and outside.
The Republic of South Sudan became independent in July after decades-long civil wars.
War was a reason that Dumba fled home as a teenager. He landed in a Kenyan refugee camp, where he lived for two years. He came to the U.S. as a 22-year-old in 1990, settling in Washington state and working in fast-food and janitorial jobs.
His wife, Sabina, whom he'd met in the Kenyan camp, joined him. Together they went to community college in Seattle, then pursued their education further at the University of Washington.
Joseph Dumba became a family physician and settled in Omaha. Sabina Dumba became a nurse practitioner. The couple work for Methodist and are based at the Methodist Physicians Indian Hills clinic near 90th Street and West Dodge Road.
Dumba speaks five languages — English, Arabic, Bari, Swahili and Kiganda — and he and his wife have been on a medical mission trip to Nicaragua. Sabina Dumba also has been to Belize. Next year, Joseph Dumba plans to go to Colombia.
Dumba is driven to prevent more deaths like his mother, who died in 2003 of an unknown illness in South Sudan.
"There's a lot of people out there who do not have any access to health care," he said. "I just like ... to (help) those people as much as I can."
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
