WE NEED A SURGEON. Not just any surgeon, but a surgeon who
would be humble enough to work with us, speaks French (and or Lingala) has
experience in and Africa operating room and who is willing to see where God is
leading in his/her life. We need one
badly. We’ve done almost the same number
of surgical interventions this year as last year at this time when we had an
active surgeon with a fully staffed operating room and God has watched over
us. However, this has also strained
other aspects of our ministry
Joe , Laura and I are working with divided attentions. Without an active surgeon on staff, we are
each doing a little more surgery. This
is challenging and fun sometimes and agonizing and heart rending at other times
when we are at our limits. It also
takes each of us from other things that we should be doing as well. Laura has MPH studies, improving obstetrics care, and family
practice duties. Joe has his family
practice duties and his administrative responsibilities. For me it’s the improvement of pediatric services
and increasing admin duties as Joe prepares to leave on home assignment in June
of this year. Don’t get us wrong we all
like to do surgery, but to do it well something else has to give. Therefore a surgeon would be great. Someone who could teach and come along side
to help
TRAUMA
You probably understand this better as “accidents” as in
motor vehicle accidents but ask any emergency physician or surgeon in the US
and you will see that they aren’t really accidents. Because they can be avoided. Anyway, we have a lot here in Impfondo
now. Add a population surge, more access
to motorcycles, no enforcement of a driver’s license or helmet laws, a dose of
alcohol and you have trauma. Lots of
trauma. We see broken legs, arms, heads,
and teeth. The only negative social consequence
is the “at fault” person pays the medical bills of the other. This seems like a good idea but leads to
exaggeration of the injury on one side and default of payments on the other and
there is no objective determination of fault.
PREMIE
In May we had a rush of premature infants. For me they are a great example of the “least of these” and
we try to pour ourselves into saving them.
Some we do some we don’t. In May we had 12 premature infants. All the ones under 800 grams (that’s about 1
½ pounds) died. One of those was a real
frustrating one because she was almost a month old and was doing well before a
viral infection swept through the pavilion and we lost power for an hour so she
lost oxygen support for an hour.
The good news is that we had 9 kids who survived and the
smallest was born at 2# 12 ounces. There
was such a neat “esprit du corps” in the room as each of the moms cheered their
babies on to the 4# 4 ounces discharge weight.
I am happy to say there is only one who still is there but he is
steadily gaining weight.
OH MY
We’ve had some “oh my” moment as well since I last
wrote.
In March we had a fire in our operating room area that was
controlled with no one being hurt but with a lot of clean up to do
afterwards.
We also had to evacuate a little girl who was struck by a
motorcycle as she was crossing the street. In that accident she sustained and
epidural hematoma which we controlled but then transferred her to Brazzaville
for the neurosurgeon to treat. I flew
down with her to make sure she continued to receive the blood she was getting
and to make sure she got to the hospital. She actually had another “oh my”
moment when I went to find her the next day at the hospital and she wasn’t
there. I found out later from the family
that the care at the referral center was concerning so she was treated as an
outpatient by a military doctor in Brazzaville.
Thanks for supporting and praying.
