Haydom's History

The information below comes from the Official Haydom Lutheran Hospital website (www.haydom.com).

 The tsetse fly problem 
In the beginning of the 1950s Haydom was an uninhabited bush. Tsetse flies made the area uninhabitable for people, but the area was fruitful: there was an extensive animal kingdom and dry, but luxuriant vegetation.

Fifty years later, Haydom is a village with one of Tanzania’s best hospitals, schools and education at collage level, churches and assembly houses, stores, guest house and trade, a network of roads that connects the town to a large surrounding area, their own water supply, electricity and air strip – and en elite of educated humans that are engaged in further develop their town and country.

It is the Haydom Mountain that has given the hospital its name. The name “Haydom” comes from the local datog language and has the meaning of “red oxen”. The Detog people needed a name for the surrounding mountains, so that they could tell the others where they had been with their cattle. The mountain was often avoided, as there was said to be a curse over it; the one who took his cattle inn to the bush area around the mountain, could suddenly lose the whole herd. People going up the mountain would also be affected and could catch a fever, headache and dive of in unwillingly sleepiness, tiredness and sometimes death.

The disease was known as the sleeping disease, and made the area remain inhabitable. It wasn’t a curse from forefathers or spirits that haunted the area, but tsetse flies that had settled down in the forest and bushes surrounding the mountain. The solution to the problem was easier than first believed; If you cut down the forest, the flies would disappear as well. And so it was that the Norwegian Lutheran Mission was able to build a hospital at Haydom.

The Official Opening 
In 1963 was the administration of the Hospital handed over to the local church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT). The hospital is under the Medical Board which in turn is elected by the General Assembly of ELCT, Mbulu Synod.

After an obvious need to expand, the Lutheran World Federation, OXFAM (UK) and “Brot für die Welt” (Germany) funded the extension to a capacity of 250 beds. The hospital was officially opened by the then President, J.K. Nyerere. Since then, the hospital has expanded with a modern building for laboratory and pediatric ward (Lena Ward).

Today HLH has a total of 400 beds, but most of the time the number of inpatients is more than that. The hospital has been part of the Tanzanian central health plan since the official opening in 1967.