A Christ Church Research Grant awarded to Professor Mike English recently enabled him to travel to Vanga Evangelical Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo to support the work of Dr Mudji E’kitiak and the wider hospital team as they make efforts to improve the quality and safety of care for women who come to deliver in the hospital and the care of their newborn babies. Christ Church support enabled Dr Mudji to visit Oxford in April 2026 and start planning the improvement activities. Professor English’s visit meant he could work with Dr E’kitiak directly, run an expert workshop in Vanga for senior nurses, doctors and allied health professionals in how to conduct improvement projects while also running separate training events for Congolese medical and nursing students in Vanga hospital.

Vanga Hospital is 500km from Kinshasa in a rural area. The hospital provides clinical services and primary care leadership for the wider Vanga health zone, a poor, rural population of 350,000. The hospital has over 400 inpatient beds, only 6 permanent doctors, and offers surgical, obstetric, medical, paediatric and other services. It receives patients from 50 health centres in the broader Bandundu region and accepts referrals from many other parts of the Congo. The particular focus of the Christ Church supported project is care to women with complicated pregnancies and their babies. As accessing care is very difficult (there are no tarmacked roads in the area) women with pregnancy complications often present very late and require emergency care to save their lives and the lives of their babies. Ensuring this emergency care is as safe and effective as possible is the goal of the ongoing project.

Vanga hospital deals with trauma and other surgical emergencies, medical emergencies (including severe Covid-19) and offers outpatient care for more complex conditions such as diabetes and HIV, care that cannot typically be provided in primary care facilities staffed just by nurses. A large number of patients of all ages still present with severe infectious diseases such as malaria and typhoid as well as what are known as neglected tropical diseases such as leishmaniasis. Although Vanga has had to manage cases of Ebola and MPox in the past the recent Ebola outbreak has not affected this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo yet.

The Christ Church Research Grant will also enable Dr E’kitiak and a Congolese colleague to travel to Oxford later in 2026 for further training. On this future visit some of the work being done in Vanga will be presented by Dr E’kitiak to students and junior researchers in meetings to be held in Christ Church.

Some of this work in Congo will be discussed on 21 August 2026 in the Christ Church Research Centre (from 1.30pm). There are a few spaces for alumni to attend – please contact Anna Port if you are interested.