Situated in Lilongwe’s Area 47 is the new Lilongwe Family Health Clinic offering paediatric specialist services, general medical consultations for all ages, and a laboratory for different types of diagnostics.
Its Directors are Dr. Charles Mwansambo, a renowned UK trained paediatrician with vast experienced having worked for a long time in the public health service at the Kamuzu Central Hospital and his wife Dr. Andrina currently at National AIDS Commission as Head of HIV Prevention and Management.
Dr. Mwansambo also served as Secretary for Health and retired about two years ago following a distinguished public service career in the health sector.
The son Dr. Charles Mwansambo Jr. who welcomed guests at the event followed his father’s footsteps and completed his medical training at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHES) formerly College of Medicine last year.
Opening the new health facility, Minister of Health Khumbize Chiponda congratulated the Mwansambo family for the great milestone noting that the population of Lilongwe is growing hence exerting so much pressure on the existing facilities describing the new addition as an encouraging and a welcome development.
She stated that having a provision for patient’s short stay at the clinic is in itself a model and commendable and called on other privately operated clinics to live to the expected standards.
Chiponda however bemoaned the quality of some of the privately owned clinics both in the rural and urban areas which she noted some of their services leave a lot to be desired.
“We have a Medical Council of Malawi, we have Nurses Council of Malawi those have a role of a regulatory authority meaning whoever wants to open a clinic they have to apply to the Medical Council of Malawi and they give the guidelines of what is supposed to be done; but also they come and inspect the premises so that before you’re given a certificate, you need to be approved and this has been done at the Lilongwe Health Family Clinic.
“That is why I also made a call to ask some other Malawians because I know we have very capable Malawians, individuals as well as companies who have the capacity that they can open a clinic or indeed a hospital. We still have a huge gap in terms of service delivery in Malawi so that they can increase access in terms of service delivery in the health sector”.
Dr. Andrina described the occasion as a special one for the Mwansambo’s following the opening of the clinic and praised God for having turned their dream into reality.
“Our mission is to provide excellent services exceptional services to both adults and children so that we can sort out their health issues and also we need to make sure that we provide this service in a conducive environment where patients feel welcome; feel at ease so that we can help them addressing their issues, but most of all we’re going to be offering medical general services and paediatric specialist services but also laboratory services as a start but moving forward; we’ll be adding services as we grow”.
She also confessed that being a medical doctor is a calling and is something that comes from the heart and that after her retirement from NAC; she’ll be joining the family venture to continue providing medical services to the people of Malawi.
