The Ilula Hospital is a 100 bed facility owned and operated by the Iringa Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (link to DIRA web site?).  It began in the 1930s as a health outpost and dispensary by Swedish Lutheran Missionaries and local Tanzanian Lutheran leaders. The facility is located in the town of Ilula, in the Kilolo district of the Iringa Region of South central Tanzania.  It is situated along the Dar-Mbeya road and trucking route, 50 km west of Iringa and about 450km east of Dar Es Salaam. Upon arrival of Minnesota visitors in 2002, it operated as a health center with two medical officers and several clinical officers, nursing staff and a rudimentary laboratory facility.

With support from the Will and Jan Carlson Foundation, an operating room was completed in 2006 allowing medical officers to perform life-saving emergency cesarean sections for women with obstructed labor. As the only surgical theater in the Kilolo district, it helped propel the facility to district-designated hospital status several years later. This family foundation was instrumental in renovating the inpatient wards, maternal health facility and construction of a trauma/x-ray building

Also in 2006, the Clinton Foundation identified the Ilula Hospital as a site to develop one of the first rural comprehensive HIV care and treatment facilities in Tanzania.  This brought infrastructure development, training, increased laboratory capability and access to free antiretroviral drugs for the thousands of people living with HIV in the area.

With government designated district hospital status came increased resources and increased health care personnel.  The 501c3 Minnesota based non-profit Shoulder to Shoulder (STS) also invested in training for physicians, nurses, a pharmacist, a dental technician and health care administrator.  The Minnesota-based non-profit, Global Health Ministries assisted in shipping to Ilula necessary medical equipment including an ultrasound machine and dental facility. Thru site visits and on-going communication, Global Health Administration Partners (GHAP website?) has provided administrative support to the leaders of the facility.  Collaboration with St Paul Partners, a Minnesota-based 501c3 non-profit, resulted in the drilling of a well that supplies water to the hospital and local community

Support from the Peter J King Family Foundation  led to construction of a number of other buildings on the hospital campus. This has included on-site housing for medical mission and construction of the Peter J King Medical Education Center. The education center includes classrooms, a library, a computer room facility, male and female dormitories and a dining hall for the Ilula Nursing School. The nursing school originally opened as a certificate program and was upgraded in 2019 to a diploma level program. In 2020, a clinical officer training program was initiated.

Shoulder to Shoulder evolved out of the Ilula Health Center Task Force, a group organized following companion congregation visits to the Iringa Region in 2002.  STS is an affiliate program of BegaKwaBega of the St Paul Area Synod of the ELCA.  STS’s mission is to support life and health in rural Tanzania.  It holds monthly board meetings in Minnesota and annual visits to Ilula to foster relationships.  Shoulder to Shoulder emphasizes a reciprocal relationship:  many Ilula Hospital leaders have visited Minnesota over the years to facilitate training and deepen the relationship.  Annual visits to Ilula evolved into a global health medical education elective in 2011.  This is a 6 week interdisciplinary fully mentored experience open to University of Minnesota (and other institutions) medical students, pharmacy students and  family medicine and internal medicine residents. In 2014, an annual two-day  Ilula-Minnesota International Health Conference was added as part of the global health elective. Tanzanian and Minnesota educators convene to provide medical education and instruction on quality improvement basics to medical, nursing, pharmacy and health administration leaders from the 28 faith based hospitals in the southern zone of Tanzania