Friday, January 5th
Hi Everyone! This is Jake tonight, and I’m going to apologize now because this will not be anywhere near as long as Devin’s entry last night! We all considered day 2 as a success! Today we traveled to Mererani this morning to hold an outreach clinic. Mererani is a mining town, and it is home to many people in poverty. The outreach clinic was free to the patients. All of the students did different assessments based on the patient’s complaint as well as all the vital signs.
Here are some of our highlights from today:
Mikayla’s highlight was holding a baby with pneumonia. The baby was undersized (weighing around 5kg at 5 months), and was really struggling to breathe. It really made her think about how lucky we are for the care we have back home.
Rachael’s highlight is how comfortable we got with caring for these people. We all came in with limited experience in the health care setting, and as we worked we became more confident in what we were doing!
Hailey’s highlight is getting the experience in a setting like this. Back home some of us work as CNAs in nursing homes, but in this setting we get to see all sorts of different conditions instead of the same things over and over again like we would in a nursing home.
Devin was surprised with how patient everyone was with us. There was a little bit of a learning curve, but no one ever complained about the wait. Back home we may have gotten much different reactions especially when we had to leave at the end of the day. This patience we received made all of us more comfortable and confident in our abilities, and allowed us to give better care.
I had the chance to talk to a girl who was born with HIV and was our age. She started feeling weak in her legs to the point of needing a stick/walker to get around. She had only missed her medication for a couple of days, and she has suffered a major set back in her own life from this minor mistake. It really put into perspective how lucky we are that we are not facing the same situations back home.
Derek was surprised with the amount of people who had come in with pain or injuries from 10-20 years ago. They had never had an opportunity for treatment and even worked through the pain for the 10-20 years. Everyone who came in was walking on their own or with a cane, but with no other support. The people we saw today can fight through more pain than we can imagine.
Ryan was surprised by the number of different cases we saw today. He said that there were a lot of different birth defects, injuries, and illnesses from their cultures and environments.
Some of the differences we noticed today:
We saw more patients today than some US clinics see in a week, and we didn’t have the same resources we would have in the states.
We also saw people who would never be able to go to a clinic due to finances, and it was an eye opening experience for everyone.
Like Devin talked about earlier, the people were very patient with us compared to the environment we may be in back in the USA.
We also saw a lot of people with the same problems due to the lifestyle they have down here. A lot of the women had back problems from carrying heavy objects on their heads, and men working in the mines with illness from the dust. Back home we have different ways to limit our injuries due to our lifestyle.
Today was another amazing day with amazing people. God has given us a way to touch people’s lives and leave these communities better. We hope we can continue to make an impact with everyone we see, and hope we can continue to grow in our medical ability and our faith. Thank you for everyone who reads this for your support and prayers!
All of the clinic today was sponsored by Hope Ministries, and many of the patients were given financial assistance to travel and see our doctor on Monday. Because of Hope Ministries Financial Support, all of the patients transferred today, their surgeries and treatments, will be covered by Hope Ministries. Thanks for your donations, many peoples’ lives will be changed!
