Featured Article: Developing a modern radiotherapy department in a rural hospital in Cameroon: The Mbingo experience
A recently published paper in Technical Innovations & Patient Support in Radiation Oncology documents the years-long effort to establish a radiation oncology programme at Mbingo Baptist Hospital, a rural facility in Cameroon. Co-authored by an international team including MephidA member Ernest Okonkwo, the paper walks through the practical realities of building radiotherapy capacity from the ground up: securing funding, planning bunker construction, sourcing equipment, and training local personnel — all coordinated through sustained collaboration between healthcare providers inside and outside the country. It stands as a detailed record of what it actually takes to bring state-of-the-art cancer care to an underserved region. [
A paper newly published in Technical Innovations & Patient Support in Radiation Oncology (Tontu et al., 2024) traces the years-long effort to bring radiotherapy to Mbingo Baptist Hospital (MBH) in Cameroon's North West Region — one of only two areas in a country of 28 million people to gain such capacity outside the economic capital, Douala. The authors, an international team spanning Cameroon, Canada, the UK and the US and including MephidA member Ernest Okonkwo, frame the project as a direct response to Africa's roughly 1.5 million annual cancer cases and the severe shortage of radiotherapy infrastructure across the continent.The account traces the project's arc from its earliest steps: a 2017 feasibility mission by visiting radiation oncologists concluded that Mbingo was well positioned, both for reaching patients from Cameroon's northern regions and thanks to a reliable local hydroelectric power supply. An international multidisciplinary volunteer advisory group was formed the same year to guide the build, drawing on both on-site staff and remote specialists including structural engineers. By 2019 the legal and administrative groundwork was complete, clearing the way for construction of the treatment bunker, which broke ground in January 2023 and is expected to finish in early 2025. A used Varian 2100 linear accelerator, decommissioned in Wales, UK, has already been secured for the site.Workforce development is treated as just as central as the physical build. With no formal in-country training pathway for any radiotherapy discipline, MBH has had to send staff abroad — one physician has already completed training in South Africa and returned to Cameroon as the hospital's radiation oncologist — while working to reduce the "brain drain" that often keeps trained specialists from coming back. The paper puts the total cost of standing up the unit, including the bunker, a dedicated CT scanner, the linac, planning software and service contracts, at roughly USD 10 million. The authors conclude that the Mbingo programme is a critical complement to the hospital's existing medical and surgical oncology services, with further plans for patient accommodation and expanded outpatient access.
Learn more about the project under:https://www.mbh-radiotherapy.org/index.php/about-us
Learn more about the project under:https://www.mbh-radiotherapy.org/index.php/about-us