The Livingstone Zambia–Scotland Medical Exchange

In January 2008, following a chance conversation between Belinda Hodge and an American volunteer, the seed was sown to create a medical exchange between Livingstone Hospital and Scotland. 

In 2011, The Livingstone Initiative approached Dr Peter Raine, a retired paediatrician based in Scotland with extensive experience in Africa. With his help, and that of The Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons Glasgow – plus funding from a British charitable Trust – everything was in place to nurture this seed for a medical exchange and take the concept to Dr Nthele, Head of Clinical Services at the Hospital in Livingstone.

In response to our suggestion, Dr Nthele said: “We are hoping that this new Medical Exchange will ultimately lead to an Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Clinic opening up in the hospital – a much needed new service the community has been without for a long time”. We invited him to select the first candidate for the Exchange.

The chosen candidate was junior doctor Alex Malambo, who was attached to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Yorkhill, Glasgow (coordinated by Professor Robert Carachi, Department of Surgical Paediatrics), with an observership in the Department of Paediatric ENT Surgery; and also in the Department of ENT Surgery at Gartnavel General Hospital, now The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Glasgow.


The Acting British High Commissioner, Mr Sean Melbourne,
meets Dr Alex Malambo, when visiting Livingstone Hospital
in March 2014.

Improving Healthcare

The Livingstone Initiative helped to open the first ENT Clinic in Southern Province, Zambia, by bringing junior doctor, Alex Malambo, to the UK for a Clinical Attachment of observership and study in ENT medicine in 2014. This was so successful, he was then sponsored by the Zambian Government to undertake 5-years post-graduate ENT surgical training at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. He graduated in 2020 and became the first  ENT surgeon in the country when he took up his new post at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. There are now seven ENT surgeons in Zambia (three in the public sector and four in the private sector).

We continue to support the ENT Clinic in Livingstone by funding Alex's quarterly week-long visits to Livingstone where, with the assistance of a trainee doctor, he performs operations, meets and assesses patients and enables the people of Southern Zambia to receive the care and treatment they would otherwise not get.

This year, through the help of a private donor in the UK, we have been able to send across another set of ENT medical instruments, which will enable more operations to be undertaken during each visit.

Online training by UK team proving hugely beneficial to the ENT Clinic in Livingstone

Dr Alex Malambo – currently Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgeon at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka – was -– as a junior doctor – our first Zambian candidate in the Livingstone Zambia-Scotland Medical Exchange back in 2014. Alex has updated us on the online training to support his Ear Nose & Throat (ENT) staff in Livingstone.

Alex tells us that the series of lectures – developed at our request by the ENT Department at the Royal Hospital for Children and University in Glasgow – were "going so well and that they are proving very beneficial to his nurses. They have a lecture once a month."

Our grateful thanks to Mr Haytham Kubba and his team in Glasgow who are giving their time to help and support the ENT clinic at Livingstone Central Hospital in Zambia.

However, Alex's visits to Livingstone ground to a halt mid-way through last year, as it was proving impossible for him to cover the costs of his week long visits out of his own pocket.

The Livingstone Initiative heard about this last month and have raised initial funding to restart the visits in early February 2024 and are currently seeking funding to keep these hugely beneficial visits and restart the online monthly lectures.

Each visit Alex undertakes to the ENT Clinic in Livingstone enables him to :

  • Perform around 15–20 operations per visit (adeno-tonsillectomy, functional endoscopic surgeries for the nose, ear surgeries, head and neck tumours);
  • Conduct specialist clinics in which approximately 30-50 patients can be screened;
  • Take a trainee doctor with him to Livingstone, so he can gain valuable experience;
  • Restart the online training programme for ENT nursing staff.