It is 7.30am. The sun is already high in the sky. The principal corridor of the 'Fonds Social du Kivu Hospital (FSKi) in Walungu is a hive of activity. People are on their way to the daily handover meeting, where nurses relate the events of the night shift: the drowsy baby who has awoken after rehydration and the administration of antipyretics. Four mothers have given birth to babies who are sleeping peacefully in their cots under mosquito nets. A quick training is given on how to administer a new medicine. An exchange of news before everyone goes off again to their daily business.

Several thousand kilometres away in Belgium, things are happening in much the same way, an update on each patient is being shared over a hot coffee with colleagues, there is joint refection on the best strategies to adopt for diagnosing and treating patients, and for approaching and supporting their families.

Back again to Kivu. The morning is the time when a full tour of each of the wards is carried out. All patients are examined, bandages are redone, treatments are adapted. Last night two patients left without warning, it is referred to here as "escape". Recovery of medical costs is never more than 40% as compared to 97% in Belgium…  An emergency has come up: acute abdominal pains. A quick diagnosis is made purely on the basis of a clinical examination, that is to say only using the five senses, ten fingers and experience: it is a peritonitis. The operating room is prepared. There is no electricity from the public network, the generator must be switched on, its humming rhythm gently rocking hospital life and signaling the surgeon's activity. After surgery, there is a meeting planned for the management committee of the hospital. This is the forum for resolving everyday problems: how to pay the healthcare personnel; increasing numbers of patients who cannot pay for the service due to poverty and loss of security; administrative questions etc.

The doctor who consults, the surgeon who operates, the director who leads the FSKi hospital with considerable skill and care, and the person who intervenes with NGO's in the area, are in fact one and the same person. He returned to Walungu after a month's internship at the Clinique St-Jean in Brussels. Financed by our NGO, this trip has allowed him to take time to recharge his batteries and learn, as well as to meet with us and other NGOs to discuss projects to support the hospital in 2008.

Night falls on Brussels and Walungu. Night staff take up their posts both here and over there, transmitting essential information, making a tour of the patients in their care, dealing with a medical emergency here, with four traumatised wounded people there. The teams in Belgium and Walungu are working with a common purpose. The difference lies in their levels of security, the means at their disposal and justice.

Thank you for your generosity, which enables us to continue to support the hospital in Walungu.

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