A case study of the Tenwek hospital community health programme in Kenya

Tenwek mission hospital, situated in the west-central highlands of Kenya, initiated a community health programme in 1984. This paper describes the major features of the programme and assesses the impact on a number of health and family planning practices after 3 years of implementation. Comparison of the results in the programme areas with the baseline survey and with control areas show significant changes in several indicators. It is concluded that Tenwek hospital demonstrated the impact a hospital can have on health of communities by effectively moving into community-based health care.