St Ann's hospital is a large and rather ramshackle complex of buildings located at the end of a dusty track off the main road of Nkhotakota, an important trading station on the shores of Lake Malawi. This is an Anglican foundation situated near the shore of Lake Malawi that in 2002 celebrated the centenary of its establishment. The Nhkotakota district has a population of 350,000. The building and facilities have been updated during the last decade and it is now a well-equipped modern hospital with 170 beds. It is also responsible for 3 health centres at distances of up to 40 km away. Outreach clinics are visited monthly to promote primary health care and preventive medicine. There is a malnutrition clinic and an orphan-care project as well as HIV/AIDS/STD programmes.

After a visit in September in 2009, we noted that they see between 40-70 patients per day and it was a very busy hospital. They also have a large opthalmic unit which sees 6-10 outpatients per week. Inter Care has been supporting St Anne's for over 20 years and it was good to see that they had Inter Care labelled medicines on their shelves. Although a large hospital, it was evident that it badly needs our help with supplies of medicines. They see a large number of Diabetics and are glad of the testing strips we send. They also use a lot of antidepressants as a result of the side effects of ART's for HIV/AIDS.