Clinic

Jan. 17, 2008

Niamey / Kollo, Niger

Hosanna Medical Team – Day 2

9:47 pm

Today we went to the town of Kollo, which is about a 45 minute drive from Niamey. We had our first day of medical clinics and it was pretty darn great. I stuck with our pediatrician, named John, for the whole day. I assisted him as he explained to me what he was doing and thinking during each exam. It was really fun and I learned a lot.

The way it worked was this: the day before we arrived for the clinic, 200 tickets were given to the chief to distribute throughout the village. Those who received a ticket were allowed to be treated, and when we finished seeing those patients, we were done for the day. This is a good idea because we really can’t see everyone. Once people start making exceptions, it gets crazy and people can start fights and stuff. By the end of the day though, we did finish the two hundred and then redistributed some of the tickets so that we could help more people. It’s kind of tricky but I think the system worked pretty well. We also had guards who did crowd control.

Man, I saw some really cute kids today. To be able to give them some basic meds, even chewable vitamin C was something! So many of the children we saw had pale gums, indicating an iron deficiency. This makes perfect sense because it is often rare that someone in these villages would have meat or dark green, leafy vegetables which provide a good source of iron.

Also, they were very happy to receive medicine, which is so encouraging! People were thankful and we knew we were helping them. We also carried out several blood tests in which we checked for malaria. We found two positive cases, and were able to give them malaria treatments.

All in all a good day, and quite tiring. We’ll go back to Kollo tomorrow for Round 2. Should be good!

The chief of N'dounga, one of the towns we went to.

These ladies cooked the whole morning so we could have some food for lunch. This is traditional...all the cooking is done outside, just like this.

Striking!

Two sets of twins! Can you believe it?

This baby was super-malnourished and sick. The doctors gave him two IOs (inter-osseous) where they stick a needle into the patient's tibia and put fluids straight into the bone marrow. The baby didn't even cry...
Finally they found a vein and were pushing fluids through him. He was looking much better.

All in all it was a great week!
(These pictures are from throughout the week, not just the first day...)