October 3, 2008 

In September, CURE International celebrated the 10th anniversary of its first hospital in Kenya. What better way to celebrate than by opening its 10th hospital, this one in Ethiopia?

Orthopedist and entrepreneur Dr. Scott Harrison, president and CEO of CURE International, founded CURE with his wife, Sally, in 1996 after several volunteer medical trips, during which he operated on children in developing African nations.

CURE International announced the 10-year anniversary of the AIC-CURE International Children's Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya on September 4, marking a decade of healing for the disabled children of Kenya. This first hospital that CURE opened was established in 1998 as Africa’s first orthopedic/pediatric teaching hospital for physically disabled children.

“We are very excited and pleased to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of AIC-CURE,” said Dale Brantner, CURE’s senior vice president of spiritual ministries. “This hospital has grown to become one of the country’s great medical and spiritual resources, attracting patients from all over Kenya and beyond.”

In honor of its 10th anniversary, the hospital held a celebration event on September 5. Special guests in attendance included CURE co-founders, Dr. Scott and Sally Harrison; Kenya’s Assistant Minister for Medical Services, Hon. Danson Mungatana; CURE donors and former patients of the hospital, among others.

Today, the hospital provides state-of-the-art care for children suffering from clubfoot, cleft lip and cleft palate, curvature of the spine and disabilities stemming from polio, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and other congenital abnormalities. It also hosts Kenya’s only certified orthopedic residency program for African doctors.

Since its opening, the hospital has performed more than 20,000 surgeries and treated more than 66,000 patients.

Brantner said that the hospital’s spiritual impact on Kenya has been as important as the medical aspect. Along with medical care, patients and their families are also counseled spiritually by highly trained counselors.

Over the past 10 years, AIC-CURE’s spiritual contributions to the country have been significant. Since 1998, the hospital’s staff has presented the Gospel to more than 370,300 Kenyans. Almost 45,000 have made an expression of faith.

From its first hospital in Kijabe, CURE International has founded nine more hospitals in just 10 years, making CURE International the currently largest provider of specialty surgical care in the developing world.

To date, all of CURE’s hospitals combined have seen 700,000 patients; performed 48,000 life-changing surgeries; given 1,100 children new smiles; healed 2,000 children of clubfoot; and provided 2,500 Afghan mothers with quality obstetrics/gynecology care

Harrison said he founded CURE because he wanted to change the lives of hurting children in developing countries. In doing so, he discovered that a cure not only changed their lives, but raised the overall healthcare standards in these countries. By building teaching hospitals in developing countries, the children can be treated for a fraction of the cost of transporting them back to the United States for the same treatment.

“[W]e realized that in the developing world – although it’s difficult to find accurate statistics – about 40 percent of the children have disabilities that are curable. In the United States, that number would be much smaller, because so many of our disabilities are associated with cerebral palsy, and we don’t have treatment for that,” Harrison said.

“In the third world, there are nutritional causes, infectious causes, and a whole series of things, which with modern, surgical techniques, we can make the children normal or nearly normal.”

By opening hospitals in developing world countries, Harrison found that not only can more children be cured, but also local doctors and nurses can be trained in first-world technology and provide continuing, sustainable care for generations to come. Hence, teaching others remains a focus for each CURE hospital.

“We started with the idea that we would go to places where there would be a large number [of those children], and what we found was there are about 150 countries that would be true in. So, we started to look at other areas that were important, including our ability to be a Christian witness in those countries. That is an important part of what we’ve felt all along that we wanted to do,” said Harrison.

In the midst of this 10th anniversary celebration for the Kijabe hospital, CURE opened its 10th teaching hospital, CURE Ethiopia Children's Hospital, in Addis Ababa on September 9. The opening of the new hospital coincided with the start of Ethiopia's New Year on September 11.This hospital is the country's only pediatric specialty surgical hospital delivering care to the country's disabled children.

"We are extremely pleased to add Ethiopia to the growing list of nations that have joined us in our mission to heal the 100 million disabled children in the developing world," said Harrison. "Our new hospital gives children and their families access to world-class specialty care regardless of their ability to pay, and offers them the hope that they will cured – and cured completely – of their physical disability."

Ethiopian President Girma Wolde-Giorgis expressed his appreciation for CURE's new hospital and said, "I am very grateful to CURE for this amazing facility and for all of the good it will do for the children of Ethiopia. It is a wonderful way for us to start the New Year with the opening of a new hospital that will bring hope to so many of our children and their families."

CURE Ethiopia has a dual focus on pediatric plastic reconstruction and pediatric orthopedics. It treats disabilities such as cleft lip and palate, clubfoot, burn contractures and other physical disabilities.

During the hospital's first year of operation, the CURE Ethiopia medical staff is expected to perform 1,000 surgeries and treat 7,000 outpatients. The facility features modern, up-to-date standards and equipment such as ECG machines, pulse oximetry, anesthetic gas monitoring and C-arm mobile X-ray units.

Additionally, Ethiopians are being trained in how to use and maintain the equipment. CURE Ethiopia will introduce advanced American diagnostic techniques utilizing ultrasound, enhanced X-ray and laboratory services that have been previously unavailable in Ethiopia.

CURE Ethiopia's medical director, Dr. Paul Lim, is one of the few United States-trained, board-certified plastic surgeons in the country. Another key staff member, executive director Adey Abate, has returned to Ethiopia to serve at the new hospital after many years abroad. She was born in Ethiopia, but immigrated to the United States, where she attended college and worked for many years.

According to Harrison, CURE International is much more than a medical/humanitarian charity. CURE is a ministry that meets the medical needs of children, offering hope and physical healing, while showing godly love. CURE has seen almost as many faith conversions as medical operations, which now number more than 48,000.

CURE has opened teaching hospitals or provided outreach treatment in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Zambia and most recently in Ethiopia. The ministry plans to open three more hospitals in the next two years in Egypt, Niger and Palestine.

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Ginny McCabe is an author, feature and entertainment writer from Cincinnati, OH. You may email her at gmwriteon@aol.com, or visit http://www.gmwriteon.com/.