Background Summary

St. Albert’s Mission Hospital was completed in 1963 with 85 beds.  It was originally run by nurses from the Dominican Sisters.  In 1983, Dr. Adele Pignatelli sent Dr. Elizabeth Tarira and three other doctors of ASSOCIAZIONE FEMMINILE MEDICO MISSIONARIA COMMUNITY (IMA) were the first resident doctors for St Albert’s Mission Hospital: Dr Alice Joseph, Dr. Alice Abraham, Dr. Enza Giuntoli, became the first resident doctors, building up the hospital to its present 140-bed capacity.  A convent for the Little Children of our Blessed Lady (LCBL), who also worked in the hospital, was built in 1968. St. Albert’s became a district (government-funded) hospital in 1985. It is the only hospital serving the 120,000 people in the district.  Today the hospital includes male, female, and children’s wards, maternity and neonatal units, surgical theater, laboratory, and pharmacy.  It admits about 5,000 patients per year and treats approximately 40,000 outpatients.

The Jesuits founded a secondary school (St. Albert’s High School) in 1963. The Dominican Sisters were then invited to run the then St. Albert’s dispensary (clinic) and also to teach in the secondary school. By 1973 the school had 197 students and there was a primary school of 261 pupils.  In February 1973, the High School was closed by Rhodesian security forces as a ‘communal punishment’ after the discovery of a guerilla base nearby.

The school reopened in April, but three months later a force from the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) captured approximately 300 pupils and staff and force-marched them towards Mozambique to train as guerilla fighters. Before crossing the border, Rhodesian Security Forces were able to secure the release of all but eight of the children and staff.  The school was later closed in the late 1970s during the height of the “liberation struggle”, not opening again until 1981 with 120 students.