St John of God is managed by Brother Aidan Clohessy, OH in its out patients centre in town. St John of God is a mental health hospital.
Inter Care has supported this hospital in the past. We visited in September 2009.
This is a large facility which was formed 16 years ago by the Brothers of the Order of Saint John of God who are the main benefactors. They have 152 staff who are spread over a hospital and out patients department, community nurses, occupational therapy and vocational training departments on 3 sites. Patients are not admitted to the hospital unless absolutely necessary as it is felt that mental health issues are best dealt with as outpatients.
There are 12 outreach clinics and the hospital also provides mental health care for Mzuzu prison. A large proportion of the patients are those on ARVs, depression being a side effect of long term ARV treatment. The government provides funding for staff and for inpatient medicines but not for outpatients who represent 78% of the hospitals total pharmacy bill. Each year the outpatients department spends around 5 million Malawi Kwatcha on medicines which they purchase from Durbin once a year.
They have a day care centre where patients receive skill-based training (carpentry, bricklaying cooking etc). The hospital receives a grant from Government for salaries.
The OPD sees an average of 25 patients per day all of the mental health patients in the catchment area of 250,000 people are treated at St John of God, which is the only mental health facility in the North of Malawi (there is one in Lilongwe and one in Blantyre), and only one Psychiatrist in the whole of the country. The hospital uses clinical officers and trains them in mental health. 
The out reach programme covers a catchment of 1.6 million people