The Aga Khan Hospital, Dar es Salaam (AKH-Dar) is part of the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS). Established in 1964, the Hospital is a 74-bed multispecialty facility staffed by 32 full-time consultants and 111 nurses offering quality health care to Tanzanians. The Hospital provides general medical services, specialist clinics and state of the art diagnostic services.
The Hospital has grown in recent years, expanding its services and upgrading its facilities. The expansion programme has emphasised the introduction of high-quality, high-technology laboratory, medicine, and radiology services, which have enhanced the capability of AKH-Dar to provide referral services in Tanzania. The Hospital is also part of the AKHS international referral system, with links to the Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi and the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi.
Hospital facilities include:
Each ward is led by a full-time consultant, supported by resident medical officers (junior doctors), residents, interns, and qualified nurses. Patient rooms are of very high quality. All the rooms in the Medical, Paediatric and Surgical wards include: air conditioning, nurse call system, cardiac arrest alarm system, piped oxygen, refrigerator, television and telephone.
AKHST also operates five Primary Medical Centres in Dodoma, Iringa, Mbeya, Morogoro, and Mwanza. These Centres provide a variety of services, including limited inpatient, outpatient, minor emergency, diagnostic and pharmacy services.
With community health programmes in large geographical areas in Central and South Asia, as well as East Africa, and more than 200 health facilities including nine hospitals, the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS) is one of the most comprehensive private not-for-profit health care systems in the developing world. Building on the Ismaili Community's health care efforts in the first half of the 20th century, AKHS now provides primary health care and curative medical care in Afghanistan, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Tanzania, and provides technical assistance to government in health service delivery in Kenya, Syria, Tajikistan and Tanzania.
AKHS has facilities in Kenya and Tanzania that provide care to over 800,000 patients annually in both rural and urban, and preventive and curative contexts. Its hospitals and health centres provide an increasingly comprehensive range of high-quality clinical services.
AKHS activities are conducted in concert with other health-related activities of the Aga Khan Development Network. The overall aim is to raise the health status of people in East Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. Emphasis, in current projects, is on strengthening health systems development.
The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), with branches in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, works with a variety of grantees, including AKHS, to improve the health of vulnerable population groups, especially mothers and children, and promote health services development on the national and regional levels.
AKF and AKHS have been joined in their work in health care in East Africa by the Aga Khan University's Faculty of Health Sciences, which offers accredited professional training, especially post-graduate education for doctors and nurses, and conducts a variety of research programmes focused on the health problems of developing nations.
The AKDN aims to assist countries in the building of effective, sustainable health systems linking different kinds of services and levels of care. For more information, please visit the AKDN website.