POSTED: 9:07 am CDT July 25, 2005
UPDATED: 9:30 am CDT July 25, 2005
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- A new hospital in Independence means medical help for people in Ethiopia.
Four floors of the Independence Regional Health Center have been closed for months as the hospital prepares to move into a new hospital in 2007.
Instead of going to the new hospital the equipment on those floors is headed to Ethiopia. There it might spur construction of the first modern hospital in Addis Ababa, a city of nearly 5 million people.
Volunteers worked during the weekend to load $400,000 worth of tables, beds, shelves, I-V towers and more into a trailer to be shipped overseas.
At first the equipment will be used in an existing facility in Addis Ababa. But eventually the value of the equipment may prompt development of a new $7-million hospital to help an underserved community.
G/S,
You are desperate. This was a dream of two Ethiopian students not Melese. Why did you leave out the rest of the story?
Here is the rest of the story:
The equipment's journey actually began 15 years ago, when two University of Kansas students had dinner with Everett.
The students, Akeza Teame and Sisay Shimelis, told Everett of life in Ethiopia and their dreams to take what they learned at Kansas back to their home country. They wanted to create something great in Ethiopia, but they didn't know what. But Everett was skeptical. He said he had seen it before: youthful enthusiasm and no plan.
He told the students to come back in two years, and he didn't think he'd see them again.
But two years later, Teame called Everett. Now focused on getting a medical degree, he told Everett of his new goal to create a modern hospital in his native land.
Everett told Teame and Shimelis to draft a plan. They eventually presented the plan to officials in Ethiopia, the World Bank and elsewhere. It was rejected.
Finally, city leaders in Addis Ababa said if the group could collect $600,000 worth of medical equipment and supplies, the city would pay for the construction of the hospital.
By then, the mission had become as much Everett's dream as that of the two Ethiopian students, he said. Everett began to search Kansas City for equipment.
When Independence Regional was taken over by HCA, the hospital was suddenly full of equipment ready to be replaced, said Matt Smithmier, a spokesman for the hospital.
Saturday was moving day, and friends of Everett, Teame and Shimelis loaded the cargo into the first of three trailers they'll send to Ethiopia by boat.
The plans are to have the equipment running in the existing building later this year.
And if all the equipment comes through, Everett said, he wants the new facility's opening to coincide with the opening of the new Independence hospital, in the summer of 2007.
Dear Ethiopian:
The settler will never smell the power in Ethiopia and this is the last breath of their day. They are throwing left and right their venon to the Ethiopian people.
Gebre cuts and paste an article just to glorify his boss Meles by leaving out part of the story. This time you got caught GebreMelese. The evidence is right here for all of us to see.
