The Nyamibungu Referral Hospital is a 100 beds rural missionary hospital caring for the 230000 inhabitants of the Kitutu Health Zone.

It runs a full complementary health care package including outpatient, inpatients (gynecology, surgery, internal medicines and pediatrics), laboratory, radiology, administration and engineering services.

The year 2025 was marked by the conflict between the DR Congo army and the Rwanda backed M23 rebellion hence the area was overwhelmed with military presence.

Stories of looting,road blockage between Bukavu and Kitutu worsened the ready challenging supply access due to holed muddy road.

Nevertheless, the hospital functioned permanently, staffs were regular and none of them were shoot except cases of extortions outside the hospital compound. There was intense internal population movement from insecure conflicting zones to the safer areas like Kitutu hence the high trend of hospital accessibility.

We provided care to 3142 patients among them 1317(42%) were admitted for inpatient care.

The bed occupancy rate was 79%, the cure rate of 90,4% with 106% increasement of total income as well as the average cost of patient care to 51,5 USD.

There was worsened adolescent sexual abuse and exploitation, regular military care, partial loss of airdrome control as well as not solved poverty related disabilities (cataract blindness, flat/clubbed feet children, malnourished…).

We call for more emergency relieve funds and career development strategy to keep this medical team around and thank you for those who honored their commitment to support rural community care.

Résumé June 2025:

The Nyamibungu Referral Hospital is a Norwegian missionary hospital providing health care to 230 thousand inhabitants of Kitutu Health Zone. The 100 beds rural hospital offers the complementary health care activities’ package.

The package includes outpatient, inpatients (gynecology, surgery, internal medicines and pediatrics), laboratory, radiology, administration and engineering services. This year 2025 is marked by the renewed open war stories in most eastern DR Congo as well as the South Kivu Province.

We provided care to 1429 patients (591 or 38,6% in admission) with a cure rate of 90%, death rate of 7% and bed occupancy rate of 72%. We are living in a militarized zone, most armed groups seeking care without payment while most population are jobless and bearing the burden of open conflict.

The hospital suffers shortage of medical supplies, unsafe personnel and uncertain future of donor’s funds while the engineering department called for solar system and x-ray machine maintenance.

The health care seeking behavior is declining, rebounding severe malnutrition among children as well as cases of rapes and gunshot wounds are common incident at acute care unit.

We are wondering about the hospital survival if emergency relieve won’t be possible within time (Pictures below).