Rural Clinic

The Village People

For the second day in a row we traveled 150miles each way to hold clinic in a remote village. Along the way we saw vendent fields of pineapples, sugar cane, papyrus, etc, only to arrive in a village void of nourishment and abundance. The first trip yesterday took five hours to get there and three and a half hours to get back. Today it was three and a half hours there and three and a half back. It was very frustrating to deal with the inefficiency of time required to get to the village when there are so many other extremely sick children minutes from our hotel. At the end of the day you are able to realize the impact you have had in a place that may never have had the opportunity to receive care and you put away the frustrations encountered. Tomorrow should be different and we’ll treat a village close by. 

Village where we held clinic

We treated 200+ patients today, yet there were still hundreds that couldn’t be seen. Mid day the crowd became restive and the pushing and shoving ensued. I have moments where I envision the clinic being overtaken by an angry crowd of sick, deprived and oppressed people. We have come close to this scenario, but somehow a certain degree of order maintains and we’re able to carry out our work. Today was interesting and exhilarating as I was pushed from the nest and was able to see my own patients. Many different tropical diseases were observed and the usual cultural discrepancies persisted. 

Grounded

One of the frequent problems encountered in third world countries where care is sparse, is the fact that people, rather than telling us what was really ailing them, prevaricated and began to give us symptoms that they thought would yield the greatest amount of meds. This presents various diagnostic issues when trying to determine what is ailing them because you're not only looking for tangible symptoms (ie. lung sounds, heart rate fever, abdominal distention, enlarged spleen/liver, etc.), but you are also playing the role of interrogator by ruling out the lies. The old adage of do no harm is quintessential when practicing medicine here. This copy cat syndrome and drug seeking tendencies accounted for a small amount of people from the overall demographic seen today. Most of the children in the village were very sick and malnourished while exhibiting signs of serious protein deficiency. Most of the conditions observed were of a viral nature along with a few cases of pneumonia, childhood malaria, endemic presence of worms in children under ten, helicobacter-pylori, PID, and lots of herpes simplex virus. I observed genital herpes in five girls and one boy with oral herpes that were all under the age of ten. The first few times I had to step of the exam room to gather my emotions and take a deep breath. The anger and rage I felt got to the point where I had to just take a second to say a prayer not only for the poor children who have been so extremely violated but also to pray for the extremely tormented individuals that would violate such innocence. After a while you become inured to the overwhelming sickness surrounding you, but the abuse and chronically ill children who we are unable to treat strikes a cord deep inside of me. It takes some quiet time and breathing at the end of the day to gather your thoughts and reflect on what you have seen. 

Crowd Gathered

Tomorrow we will get the morning off to take a breath and recover from the extensive travel and mental exhaustion encountered over the past two days. In the afternoon we will hold a clinic at an orphanage on the banks of the Nile river close to Jinja.

I will try to update tomorrow night and fill you all in on the events of the day. 

Take Care, 

LG

P.S.- there is one graphic photo at the end, strong stomach required. third photo down.

Varied Emotions- Eyes are the window to the soul

Kwashiorkor Malnourishment

Chronic bacterial infection