Photo caption: From left, Emily Steward, Kathleen Grant, Gisele Commins, Lisa Reph.
Four nurses from St. Luke’s Allentown Campus left their homes, families and workplace last month to volunteer 8,000 miles away as caregivers in the African country of Malawi.
Led by Kathleen Grant, RN, ICU manager, the group also included Lisa Reph, RN, ICU; Gisele Commins, RN, ICU nurse educator; and Emily Steward, RN, infection prevention.
In addition to their personal luggage, they took 14 50-pound suitcases filled with medical supplies, medications, shoes and toothbrushes. Malawi, located in Southeast Africa with a population of 21,600,000, is one of the world’s poorest countries. People there live on about $2 a day, many relying on subsistence farming and fishing.
The group of St. Luke’s nurses arrived in Malawi on March 12 after 30 arduous hours of air and overland travel. They immediately purchased medications at the local pharmacy for treating malaria, HIV/AIDS, infections and other ailments. Next, they set up pop-up clinics in vacant buildings in Zomba, the country’s former capital, and two nearby villages.
During their nearly two weeks there, they treated more than 7,300 patients—mostly women and children—alongside local and other volunteer doctors and nurses. It’s not unusual for patients to walk several hours through the forests and fields to a clinic, explained Grant. Each morning, a line of hundreds of women and kids waited outside the clinics in hope of receiving treatment. Following an eight-hour day of diagnosing illness and providing care, St. Luke’s team reviewed the data they collected, discussed the cases they treated and prepared for the next day’s patients.
“We took care of some of the poorest people on earth,” said Grant, who has made several mission trips to the Third World since 2005. They treated the sickest patients first and sent those critically ill by the region’s sole ambulance to the regional hospital in Zomba.
They treated malaria, skin infections, dysentery, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy-related complications, skin wounds and abscesses and other conditions rarely seen in the U.S. The team also provided dental, vision and foot care.
They educated the patients on healthy behaviors in hopes of avoiding repeat illnesses. Though many conditions are easily prevented or treated in the developed world, they’re common in Malawi.
Each nurse used vacation time and paid for her own travel, lodging and vaccination expenses to make the trip. They collaborated with local members of Villages and Partnerships, a non-profit, faith-based organization located in New Jersey which has served in Malawi since early in the 2000’s.
To raise funds for the trip, Grant and her colleagues held fundraisers at St. Anne’s School in Bethlehem, which Grant’s children attend, Union Evangelical Lutheran Church in Schnecksville and others in their local communities, through family and friends and at St. Luke’s Allentown Campus. On average, each nurse spent $1,500 of her own money for the trip.
While this was Grant’s second mission trip to Malawi, and her sixth overall to India, Africa and Costa Rica, she said she continues to be struck by poverty and disease there. But, she said, this is balanced by the sense of fulfillment and gratitude and deep religious faith apparent among their patients.
“Through a local translator,” Grant recalled, “a woman thanked us for our service said she hoped God would continue to bless us. The translator responded, ‘God is who sent us here.’
“That was a full-circle moment for us as to why we were there. … It’s why I went into nursing: to help people who are less fortunate than me.”
She’s already looking forward to her next medical mission to Zomba, planned for March 2026.
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 21,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 350+ outpatient sites. With annual net revenue of $4 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital.
Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school campus. It also operates the nation’s oldest School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 52 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 500 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke’s, a member of the Children’s Hospital Association, established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.
SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction. St. Luke’s is a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. The Network’s flagship University Hospital earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from Fortune/PINC AI 10 years in a row, including in 2021 when it was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. In 2021, St. Luke’s was also identified as one of the 15 Top Health Systems nationally. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.
Information provided to TVL by:
Sam Kennedy
