Have Suture - Will Travel

One of the things that I have been concerned about is the lack of medical care in the area where we are going. There are no hospitals or clinics. So I got a book entitled Where There is No Doctor (edited for Africa). It is full of illustrations and helpful instructions like how to cut worms out that are growing inside a persons leg, or how to make a splint using a tree branch, etc...

But in spite of having this helpful knowledge, I still felt inadequate in assisting Tom if he gets hurt during all this building and drilling that will be taking place.

So I enlisted the aid of a very nice Canadian doctor who happened to be staying here at SIM for a couple of weeks. He was giving the regular doctor a brief vacation.

His wife, who is a public health nurse, showed me how to give a shot. Her name was Twyla, and she was so patient with me- allowing me to practice several times! She assembled all the proper equipment; vials of water, syringes...and of course my first ‘patient’ Mr. Orange! I was soon shooting that orange up with lots of water and feeling very confident.

The next step was learning to suture. This time I went to the head man - the doc himself.

Dr. Glen was a very good instructor and diagramed how to suture as well as showing me how to do it. Then it was my turn. I approached my subject with confidence (again, Mr. Orange) and proceeded to sew him up with no problem. I don’t know what the big deal is! Of course, perhaps with a living, bleeding YELLING human being it will be a different story. But as for now I can suture up oranges with the best of them!

We took a day trip down to a clinic run by SIM in a place called Langano. It is about three hours south of Addis. After three hours we came to the turn off road where we proceeded 15 km down a bumpy, BUMPY road before we finally got to the clinic. There is a couple who lives there, Dan and Kim, and she is a Nurse Practitioner. When we finally pulled up to the clinic, we saw around 75 people patiently sitting outside in the shade of an old, gnarled tree. They were waiting to see the doctor. No TVs in the waiting room, no coffee, no magazines to read...just sitting on the ground, waiting their turn.

Patients patiently waiting to see the doctor at Langano

Some people were carried on crude stretchers by family or friends many miles to get medical help. Some came by mule or horse, but most just walked. The NP has a very busy practice. She sees about 145 pregnant women for prenatal care, delivers babies, treats for malaria and malnutrition, and a host of other ailments and diseases. She also helps run an adjoining building called “House of Hope”. This is for the babies who mothers die in childbirth. They must be fed and taken care of until a home can be found for them. Most babies are severely under nourished anyway- sometimes they need some supplemental formula or baby food. There is a drought and food shortage happening in Ethiopia and most people barely have enough food to survive-let alone thrive. Many times she rides by horseback out into the bush to make house calls; checking on patients that can’t get out. Now that's a good doctor!

The gratitude on these people's faces is striking. She is their only hope. They recognize that her medicine is good even though it competes with the influence of the local witch doctors and traditional superstitions and home remedies. It must be very frustrating for her to not have enough medicines for the people, knowing that with the proper medications she could cure most diseases. But she does the best that she can and knows that while she can’t save everyone she can save some. And so she keeps on..... If any of you would want to help out by sending prenatal vitamins, etc..I know she would appreciate it! For a doctor, I can only imagine what satisfaction it must be to help these people and what a fulfilling career this must be. It certainly doesn’t pay much now, but the heavenly rewards she and others like her will receive are far better than driving a new BMW or living in a big house (with an even bigger mortgage payment!)

This is Dr. Kim. Her smile is as sunny as her personality! I want to go back and get a picture of her in her white coat riding by horseback out into the bush making ‘hut calls’ (instead of house calls-get it?? )

This is a container bridge-a clever use of overseas metal shipping containers (we thought!) Sometimes they stack two on top of each other and make a house. Ethiopians are so resourceful!