Blog

Today was the second day of clinic work.  I am at the Kalupe Clinic, which is the largest and closest clinic to the hospital. It was the first satellite clinic established in the area. There were four of us seeing patients: two medics from Malawi, a nurse practitioner/student from Xavier College, and myself.  We are supported by a whole triage system of nurses and a pharmacy staff.  We have anti-malarials and other antibiotics including anti-parasitics, pain meds such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen, eye meds, some seizure meds, and BP meds. I work with a translator at my side (Emma) and I was somehow made the official “Gynae Consult”. Yesterday I did not see that many patients because I did mostly GYN exams.  I am not sure that is the best use of my time because I did not really have the meds I needed to treat anything besides PID.  Today I did fewer GYN exams and treated malaria, headaches, fevers, colds, rashes, body aches, as well as PID.  I am learning again how to recognize malaria.  I have not seen as much HIV as I expected. Yesterday seemed chaotic and overwhelming, but today we felt more under control.  Our NP student is doing really well.  She asks questions and has a good clinical sense.

Both today and yesterday we had lunch with Emma, my translator, in the village of Kalupe.  She lives in the village so she arranged for our food. She says, “These are my people.” I bring her snacks every day. She especially likes the squeezable applesauce.

Emma is a teacher in the primary school built and run by Villages in Partnership (VIP).  VIP paid for her training and is sending her to college to earn a teaching diploma so that she can teach in the new secondary school that they are building. She teaches during the week and goes to school on the weekends. She lives with her husband and daughter.  Her daughter attends the school at which she teaches. She says that she is a beneficiary of all that VIP has done for the region.

After clinic the nursing and NP students played with the village kids with soccer and beach balls.  The children hardly have any toys of their own and were so very excited to play with the balls!

In the evening after dinner, we gather to talk about the day in one of the classrooms and we pass around candy, chocolate bars. Yum.  Today we told our highs and lows, “happy’s and crappy’s.” Tomorrow is church and a hike in the mountains.

 

Today is day 2 in Malawi.  We arrived yesterday after a 20 hour trip, 15 hr to Johannesburg, a layover, and then 2 hours to Malawi.

We are staying at N’amanghazi Farm in Zomba, a working farm owned by the Balantyre Synod of the CCAP (the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian).  Twenty seven of us are housed in four different buildings. Workers cook food for us every day: fried chicken, goat boiled with onion and tomato, veggies, rice, potatoes, eggs and Nsima, a corn flour dish similar to grits, but finer and stiffer.  There are not a lot of veggies, some cabbage salad and mustard greens. The buildings are rough but clean.  I believe this was previously a youth hostel, but is now a Presbyterian conference center. Most of the time we have electricity; and we have hot and cold running water and toilets with seats!

Today we met the clinic teams, organized all the meds, and visited the local hospital. The hospital reminded me of the hospital in Liberia that I worked in as a medical student 30 years ago.  But it is larger, more disorganized and not as clean. It is heartbreaking to see the conditions of the hospital when we have so much back home.

Tomorrow we will create 4 clinics from scratch in empty buildings with no electricity or running water. We will bring furniture, meds and equipment.  Testing will all be “point of care” including glucose, hemoglobin, malaria and HIV testing by finger stick.  We expect it to be busy because rumor has it that the government clinics have run out of malaria meds.