The past couple of weeks have flown by. Seems that work at the hospital keeps on growing, with more and more outpatients coming. Last Monday, myself and another doctor saw over 100 patients. We are thankful that people are regaining confidence in the quality of the hospital services. As what seems to be the usual, there are encouraging days and 'challenging' ones.
Thankful my Kiswahili continues to improve. I still get a problem at times with complicated histories of patients. Sometimes you ask 'what is the problem today' and they begin with their history of 5 years ago... I have to read just about every evening on some aspect of medicine that either I learned a long time ago, or have never treated. Am thankful for special gift money that helps me to keep a medical program called UpToDate on my computer. Has the most up to date information on a wide variety of things in medicine. It's equivalent to having probably 10-15 text books. (by the way, inspite of how we doctors act at times, we really don't know it all!).
Anyway, this past week was one of treating and counseling. I try hard to give education to patients on the ward whenever we do rounds. Together with the nurses we teach about general hygeine, especially about safe drinking water, and malaria avoidance. More about water later. But this week was a bit different as I was doing counseling with a married couple about infertility, then with a young man who had a bad case of shingles on his face and had just been tested and discovered he has the HIV virus. Another young married man about 'family issues' and counseling a young wife about why it was that I couldn't lie and fill out a form incorrectly for her as she was pregnant with another persons child. Yeah, all that in Kiswahili. I pray that what I heard and what I said was correct.
Unfortunately, once again it was a week with death. A one year old boy died on the ward, after 4 days of treatment. I can still see his sweet little face as he looked at me while I was examining him. Some of the children cry as they are used to getting immunizations and so think I am going to give them one. Others cry because I am white (and I suppose some cuz I'm ugly). But this little boy looked right into my eyes as if he could see right through to my soul and was saying 'help me!' We did all that we could but yet early the next morning he died. And then two days later I had to tell a 20 year old married lady that her 6 month old baby had died inside her. Don't know the cause of either deaths. Was able to pray with them.
I hope that it isn't depressing to read this, but I just want to share with you what the reality is. Life is hard here for Tanzanians. Disease is everywhere, and because of poverty and other causes, many are late to reach the hospital for service, others go to traditional healers first, then when all seems hopeless, they come to us. That is the reality. But we do treat a lot of patients that get better and go home, Praise God!
Oh yeah, water. The hospital was blessed to receive 4 of the 8 water filters from
Baptist Global Response (http://www.baptistglobalresponse.com/blog/?cat=120). These filters are made in Kenya and work great to provide safe drinking water. We put two on the ward, one in Maternal Child Health Clinic, and one in Pharmacy. So thankful for clean, safe, drinking water.
OK, so today (Sunday) we went to Kibirizi Baptist Church. Took us 45 minutes to find the place (it's 10 min from our house). There are NO signs anywhere, and people gladly helped us to find three other types of churches, before someone finally said, "go back to the market, turn left and climb the hill. Ask there, they will explain." Finally we came across a lady who told a youth (yes, she told him to 'get in their truck and show us') who showed us the way there. We had a great time of worship with the believers at Kibirizi Baptist Church. After the service we had a 'family' meal all together. This church and Kalalangabo Baptist get together the first Sunday of the month, then after the service have a meal. We had ugali (cooked white corn meal), beans, and dagaa (like smelt). They are a major source of protein in the diet here. Caught at night out on lake Tanganyika and then sun dried. Before eating they are soaked in water and then fried in oil with some tomatoes, onions and salt. I really liked them. This weekend we'll get some when the boats come in in the morning and then fry them like smelt...my mouth is already watering.
Daily by His grace...
Thankful my Kiswahili continues to improve. I still get a problem at times with complicated histories of patients. Sometimes you ask 'what is the problem today' and they begin with their history of 5 years ago... I have to read just about every evening on some aspect of medicine that either I learned a long time ago, or have never treated. Am thankful for special gift money that helps me to keep a medical program called UpToDate on my computer. Has the most up to date information on a wide variety of things in medicine. It's equivalent to having probably 10-15 text books. (by the way, inspite of how we doctors act at times, we really don't know it all!).
Anyway, this past week was one of treating and counseling. I try hard to give education to patients on the ward whenever we do rounds. Together with the nurses we teach about general hygeine, especially about safe drinking water, and malaria avoidance. More about water later. But this week was a bit different as I was doing counseling with a married couple about infertility, then with a young man who had a bad case of shingles on his face and had just been tested and discovered he has the HIV virus. Another young married man about 'family issues' and counseling a young wife about why it was that I couldn't lie and fill out a form incorrectly for her as she was pregnant with another persons child. Yeah, all that in Kiswahili. I pray that what I heard and what I said was correct.
Unfortunately, once again it was a week with death. A one year old boy died on the ward, after 4 days of treatment. I can still see his sweet little face as he looked at me while I was examining him. Some of the children cry as they are used to getting immunizations and so think I am going to give them one. Others cry because I am white (and I suppose some cuz I'm ugly). But this little boy looked right into my eyes as if he could see right through to my soul and was saying 'help me!' We did all that we could but yet early the next morning he died. And then two days later I had to tell a 20 year old married lady that her 6 month old baby had died inside her. Don't know the cause of either deaths. Was able to pray with them.
I hope that it isn't depressing to read this, but I just want to share with you what the reality is. Life is hard here for Tanzanians. Disease is everywhere, and because of poverty and other causes, many are late to reach the hospital for service, others go to traditional healers first, then when all seems hopeless, they come to us. That is the reality. But we do treat a lot of patients that get better and go home, Praise God!
Oh yeah, water. The hospital was blessed to receive 4 of the 8 water filters from
Baptist Global Response (http://www.baptistglobalresponse.com/blog/?cat=120). These filters are made in Kenya and work great to provide safe drinking water. We put two on the ward, one in Maternal Child Health Clinic, and one in Pharmacy. So thankful for clean, safe, drinking water.
OK, so today (Sunday) we went to Kibirizi Baptist Church. Took us 45 minutes to find the place (it's 10 min from our house). There are NO signs anywhere, and people gladly helped us to find three other types of churches, before someone finally said, "go back to the market, turn left and climb the hill. Ask there, they will explain." Finally we came across a lady who told a youth (yes, she told him to 'get in their truck and show us') who showed us the way there. We had a great time of worship with the believers at Kibirizi Baptist Church. After the service we had a 'family' meal all together. This church and Kalalangabo Baptist get together the first Sunday of the month, then after the service have a meal. We had ugali (cooked white corn meal), beans, and dagaa (like smelt). They are a major source of protein in the diet here. Caught at night out on lake Tanganyika and then sun dried. Before eating they are soaked in water and then fried in oil with some tomatoes, onions and salt. I really liked them. This weekend we'll get some when the boats come in in the morning and then fry them like smelt...my mouth is already watering.
Daily by His grace...
