Project Overview

Africa faces a tragic shortage of cardiovascular care. Our effort is focusing on a region of Tanzania with no cardiac specialists, helping KCMC hospital to build a comprehensive cardiovascular center to serve 15 million people. These dynamic partnerships are already making a difference.

We are supporting planning and construction of the KCMC Cardiovascular Centre. It will offer treatment for children and adults with heart disease, equipped with two operating rooms (ORs), and two cath labs. It will have 100 beds (50 pediatric and 50 adult), as well as an outpatient clinic.

Construction began in late 2024. The center is expected to open in early 2027. The estimated cost of construction and equipment is $20 million. Its equivalent in the U.S. might cost well over $100 million. A relatively small investment in Tanzania can have a big impact.

FCCA experts in Minnesota and across the U.S. are helping with health facility design, medical equipment planning, operational and financial planning. And our volunteer clinicians – cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, interventionalists, intensivists, and nurses, will mentor KCMC’s new cardiac specialists when they return from training in India and begin to practice.

Our Partners

KCMC

The hospital is a large complex with 2,000 students, and 1,300 staff. KCMC has affiliated medical and nursing schools, and a research center. KCMC is a public/private partnership between the Evangelical Lutheran Church under the Good Samaritan Foundation of Tanzania, and the government of Tanzania, with support from the Tanzanian Ministry of Health.

Minnesota Chapter of the American College of Cardiology

Minnesota Chapter of the American College of Cardiology is supporting KCMC clinicians with patient consults now, and expects to provide in-person training and mentorship when the Tanzanian cardiac team returns from India to open the KCMC cardiac center.

Global Heartcare Foundation

The Global Heartcare Foundation is supporting sending a team of Tanzanian physicians, nurses and technicians for cardiac training to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and to India for up to three years. They will return to Tanzania to serve as the staff of the new cardiac center. This education plan is modeled on a successful pilot program in Ethiopia, developed by Foundation's founder, Dr. Vib Kshettry, training Ethiopia's first full cardiac surgery team.

ZGT Overzee Foundation

A team of experts in the Netherlands is also engaged. This includes consultants in vascular surgery, cardiology, and cardiac surgery from ZGT Hospitals, Almelo-Hengelo and MST Hospital, Enschede, as well as experts in IT and solar energy. ZGT Overzee foundation is coordinating this work.

Our History

FCCA has grown out of a highly successful 35 year Minnesota partnership to support KCMC in specialty training. Starting in 1987, a group of Minnesota physicians, hospital administrators and advocates have supported the development of radiology and imaging at KCMC, through the NGO East Africa Medical Assistance Foundation. In 2013 they expanded the partnership to support KCMC’s development of cancer care, with an emphasis right from the start on children, founding the Foundation for Cancer Care in Tanzania to support this work. Now FCCA is supporting the creation of KCMC’s first cardiovascular center, learning from the experiences of these earlier partners.

Project Overview