One Hospital Working to Open its Doors is Now Helping Another Do the Same — Halfway Across the World

One hos­pi­tal work­ing to open its doors is now help­ing anoth­er do the same — halfway across the world.

As Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) moves for­ward in bring­ing the QMG Hos­pi­tal to our com­mu­ni­ty, it’s also play­ing a role in help­ing make a hos­pi­tal in Kenya a real­i­ty. Col­lab­o­ra­tion between QMG Pres­i­dent Car­ol Brock­miller; Ada Bair, Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal and Han­cock Coun­ty Senior and Child­care Ser­vices CEO; and Bish­op E.L. War­ren, Ph.D., Senior Pas­tor of the Cathe­dral of Wor­ship in Quin­cy, has led to the dona­tion of med­ical equip­ment and sup­plies from QMG and Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal in Carthage to two Kenyan health­care projects — pro­vid­ing life-sav­ing resources to com­mu­ni­ties with lit­tle access to care. How­ev­er, one sig­nif­i­cant hur­dle remains: secur­ing the funds to ship the items overseas.

To help off­set ship­ping costs, Brock­miller sug­gest­ed a fundrais­ing ini­tia­tive, bring­ing employ­ees togeth­er to sup­port the effort. This led to the Souper Bowl of Car­ing on Feb­ru­ary 5, with both QMG and Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal in part­ner­ship with Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal Foun­da­tion host­ing lunch events where employ­ees pro­vid­ed dona­tions to enjoy soup. To max­i­mize the impact, the QMG Foun­da­tion matched the con­tri­bu­tions made by QMG employees.

“Bring­ing QMG Hos­pi­tal to our com­mu­ni­ty has always been about increas­ing access to care and mak­ing health­care more afford­able. Bish­op War­ren is lead­ing a sim­i­lar mis­sion in Kenya — to expand health­care access in an area where it is crit­i­cal­ly need­ed. Just as he has stood by us, we want to stand by him. It’s sim­ple: we share the same mis­sion — to serve our com­mu­ni­ties by pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty, afford­able health­care to those who need it most,” Brock­miller shared.

The dona­tion effort will sup­port two hos­pi­tal projects in Kenya. The first is a women’s health and mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal, designed with small birthing rooms, emer­gency care facil­i­ties, and wait­ing areas to accom­mo­date moth­ers in labor. Once com­plet­ed, it is expect­ed to serve near­ly 500,000 child­bear­ing women. The sec­ond project involves ren­o­vat­ing a long-vacant 400-bed hos­pi­tal, expand­ing health­care access to the sur­round­ing community.

Bish­op War­ren has been at the fore­front of these hos­pi­tal projects, ensur­ing that med­ical equip­ment no longer in use local­ly can be repur­posed to meet crit­i­cal needs in Kenya.

“We start­ed with noth­ing, and we would­n’t be where we are today with­out the sup­port of Quin­cy Med­ical Group and Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal. The impact of this project is tru­ly beyond words,” said Bish­op War­ren. ​“If you could see the con­di­tions at these facil­i­ties right now — the lack of san­i­ta­tion and care stan­dards — you’d under­stand just how sig­nif­i­cant this dona­tion is. Thanks to this col­lab­o­ra­tion, we’re bring­ing a state-of-the-art facil­i­ty to pro­vide the care that’s long overdue.”

The donat­ed med­ical equip­ment includes birthing beds, hos­pi­tal beds, mobil­i­ty aids, kitchen appli­ances, and over 15,000 sur­gi­cal instru­ments. While the equip­ment itself has been secured, the ship­ping costs remain a challenge.

“We’ve had to pause our work­force tem­porar­i­ly while we raise funds for the ship­ping costs, but the gen­eros­i­ty shown by QMG and Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal will help us get this equip­ment to Kenya so we can resume our work,” Bish­op War­ren said.

Ada Bair, Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal and Han­cock Coun­ty Senior and Child­care Ser­vices CEO, echoed the impor­tance of the part­ner­ship. ​“We are hon­ored to sup­port these trans­for­ma­tive health­care projects in Kenya. Our part­ner­ship with local orga­ni­za­tions exem­pli­fies our shared com­mit­ment to improv­ing health­i­er out­comes and enhanc­ing the well-being of com­mu­ni­ties world­wide. We believe that every indi­vid­ual deserves access to essen­tial health­care ser­vices, and through ini­tia­tives like these, we strive to make that a reality.” 

With the final pieces falling into place, the equip­ment is expect­ed to ship in the com­ing weeks, with a pro­ject­ed arrival in May 2025.

For more infor­ma­tion on how to sup­port this effort, please con­tact Bish­op War­ren at 217−257−6602.