Mount Meru Regional Referral Hospital, Arusha (Tz)

Mount Meru is the Government Regional Referral Hospital for the Arusha Region and has 450 beds. With its close proximity to some of the World’s most beautiful natural playgrounds, Arusha is often considered to be the Safari Capital of the World.

Mount Meru RRH was the main host to our Arusha Hub induction programme in March 2020 and we were very grateful to Dr Babu and his team who are hardworking and dedicated. Keen to boost the services that they can offer to the wide population they serve, they embraced the TNMHP.

Despite the success of the initial induction programme, the ongoing service failed to be established at that time due to problems sourcing and importing a suitable autoclave. Work arounds were attempted, employing a hub-and-spoke approach to mesh sterilisation. However, for complex reasons this also did not work. Efforts to solve the issues were then hampered by the COVID pandemic. We have learned a lot from this journey.

However, at the 2023 TSA AGM & SM held in Dodoma in June, renewed contact with Dr Babu meant that we could offer a small supply of our mesh pre-sterilised as a short term work around (we had brought this as a back up for the Dodoma hub induction). After a long wait, we were delighted that the first TNMHP mesh repair took place at Mt Meru the following month. We remain committed to establishing a truly sustainable service and look to return to Arusha later in 2023 with a suitable autoclave to complete the induction process.