EXPANDING OUR REACH

We are excited for the opportunity to update you on Living Room’s expansion to our second site into Eldoret! We currently have a team of Kenyan and US based architects completing the design for the Kimbilio Care Center campus. We are praying and dreaming and hope to begin Phase 1 of construction in November 2016. We are acutely aware: there is still more work to be done. Our vision for growth includes three strategies: patient care, sustainability, and systemic transformation.

• PATIENT CARE—Living Room is expanding its services to a second campus by creating Kimbilio Care Center – Eldoret. It is approximately a 35 mile/90 minute drive from Living Room’s existing campus and is situated in a strategic location in its nearness to a newly opened cancer center, which provides care to nearly 700 cancer patients per month in the out-patient clinic. Kimbilio Care Center – Eldoret will be the primary referral site enabling many adults and children to receive quality palliative care services. It will be an ultra-modern care facility that will cater for 50 inpatient guests at a time as well as provide outpatient and home based hospice services to hundreds in need.
• SUSTAINABILITY—Living Room is working to diversify its revenue streams to have more sources of income from within Kenya. First, there is a population of those in need of our palliative care services that are able and willing to pay. Kimbilio Care Center – Eldoret will operate on a fee based system, while our facility in Kipkaren will remain free to those who cannot pay. Second, for the past three years we have been operating a for-profit funeral home business which not only extends our mission of caring for those grieving death but also has generated income to fund our operations. We plan to duplicate this business in the Eldoret location with the goal of exceeding 50% of our budget from the income generating business. Profits will go towards the care of patients at our site in Kipkaren.
• SYSTEMIC TRANSFORMATION—A strong emphasis within the Kenyan health care system is on curative treatment, even when disease is advanced and prognosis is poor. However, there is a great need within Kenya for quality end-of-life supportive care that addresses the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of patients and their families. The current academic institutions and government health care providers lack some of the necessary training, systems, and infrastructure to care adequately for these special needs. Living Room aims to demonstrate the importance of palliative care to the larger Kenyan health care system by establishing a much needed education center. We expect those trained in our education center will have a positive impact on health care provided in hospitals and clinics, transforming the system one person at a time.

The strategies of expanded patient care, financial sustainability, and systemic transformation through education will not only increase the ability of Living Room to reach more people directly, but also demonstrate a replicable model that will encourage others throughout the country and continent to do likewise.

The cost of this dream is  USD 3 million, of which we have raised one million.  We invite you to partner with us in making this vision a reality. Thank you in advance for your generosity of prayers and financial gifts.  Please assist us in sharing the vision and give others the opportunity to be a part of our community of compassion and hope. For more information, contact Dennis McGowan (LRMI Executive Director) at dennis@livingroominternational.org.