Saturday, December 30
Hey guys! My name is Michaela and I am one of the nursing students who are on the trip. To start our day, we learned a lot of valuable lessons about the healthcare here. We set up clinic in a government clinic in which they did not have much. Our first few patients had a lot of major complications due to simple problems. There were many complications when it came to transferring the people out of their tribe to get more medical attention. Often we found ourselves falling at the feet of Jesus because we knew that we could not give what they need. We often found ourselves at a loss of words because we could no longer intervene. One case that stuck out to me, was a little baby who was struggling to breathe and her oxygen was low.
It was hard to hear that her mother and father were away and so the grandmother had to take the child to seek more medical care because we could not give the best medical care. The clinic did not have a lot of the things that we needed such as a blood glucose monitor, or portable oxygen. We had a lot of pediatric cases today which was hard to see so many needing medical care. Towards the end, we found ourselves becoming frustrated because we could not help all, however, we were able to help around 150 people today. Often times, we also found ourselves taking a look into their lives and putting them in their shoes. It helped us to not quickly judge but come and realize that what they are experiencing is something that is unique to them. A lot of the problems that we saw were back pain and bad joints. We often were teaching good body mechanics which is a simple fix for us but in their culture its changing how they proceed doing things. We saw a lot of people who worked in the mines and that’s how they make money for their families. However, that creates a lot of complications for the person which is like back pain. So a treatment so simple actually changes how they would do things. We want to thank the donors for making this possible for us to go and serve the people.
