We support Dr. Kris Prenger, a Physician who has dedicated her life to the mission at Lamb hospital in Parbatipur, Bangladesh.  Dr. Kris Prenger is a family practice physician with an MD from Ohio State University and a Masters of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Since 1997, she has practiced clinical obstetrics/gynecology and has been a public health administrator at the Lutheran Aid to Medicine in Bangladesh project (LAMB) in northwest Bangladesh. Her responsibilities also include planning for community leadership and health services for a total population of 550,000 residing in area villages.

LAMB has been working in health and development in the Dinajpur and Rangpur areas of north-west Bangladesh for nearly 30 years. Although Lamb is best known for its 150 bed hospital, over half of what Lamb does occurs in the surrounding community.

A few key points about LAMB:

• Focus is to serve the poor
• Aims for high quality in all that we do

Our five key elements are:

• The hospital
• Community activities
• Training capability
• Growing data research capability
• School

LAMB is increasingly being recognized as a successful model for provision of health services to the poor.  We are a Mission hospital, and are here to serve God by serving the poor.

More about Lamb

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s problems include

• being one of the most densely populated countries in the world
• a growing population
• frequent natural disasters
• inadequate health and education services
• a history of inadequate governance

The vision for LAMB began in the early 1950s when a missionary of the American Santal Mission in Dinajpur felt and urgent need for medical work for the hundreds of thousands who had no access to proper healthcare. LAMB thereby has its foundations in providing health services around the communities of the area.

LAMB has grown considerably in its ability to serve. Now the hospital treats more than 60,000 out patients per year – (nearly 200 per day) and more than 9,000 in-patients per year for surgery or medical treatment, and focusing only on the potentially difficult births we still deliver more than 3,500 babies per year.

In the community LAMB has 28 static clinics including 18 safe delivery units spread over an area more than 80 km in length. The community activities however are much broader than clinics and cover a range of approaches to improving health. Work includes health focused awareness raising, nutrition improvement, technical support to other organisations and working with government. It also covers disaster preparedness and other aspects of community development
LAMB has now extended its service into provision of high quality training for third parties, primarily in the health area, and because of its access to a large archive of health and socio-economic data is increasingly called upon to assist in research programs.

LAMB now has more than 900 staff – mostly Bangladeshi but with a number of foreign staff to bring additional expertise.

Despite its growth, LAMB retains its original mission to serve God through serving the poor and underprivileged, particularly women and children. The blend of religions of our patients reflects fairly closely the proportions of the populations of the whole of Bangladesh.

We believe that LAMB is increasingly widely recognized for the high quality of its services for the poor, and we welcome being considered an example.