I highly recommend Calvary Methodist Church, right here in Wenchi near the hospital. I went there yesterday and it was an awesome experience. The rest of Sunday was a day to relax and to contemplate my experience so far and what lies ahead. It has been great and I am so thankful that I get to do this.
We started out with a mini cholera clinic today. In developing countries, cholera is a serious problem, especially in rainy seasons and times of flooding. We are in the tail end of Ghanas rainy season. As you know, one of the primary reasons that I am here is to get my Diploma in International Medicine and Public Health. I am here to see and to understand by experience what I learned in theory in the hybrid course through INMED. Cholera is one of those diseases/problems. Treatment is crucial within the first 24 hours, keeping someone hemodynamically stable with more fluid in than is coming out. It has a unique diarrhea, vomiting and sometimes fever. We sent stool culture to lab on all patients. We give antibotics but the primary treatment is fluid replacement…..fast! In this case it was two large IVs on all three patients. Ideally you should isolate these patients quickly since cholera can spread. We did what we could but a third world hospital has few options. Well the good news, we succeeded with God’s help on all three patients. As I left today, all three were through the acute stage in the isolation unit that we setup.
We also had a serious laceration with lots of blood loss. The man was brought by foot 8 miles so you can imagine what condition he was in and losing blood from the cut. He was cutting with a machete and cut his hand with a 2 inch deep laceration. Praise God he missed his tendons so it was stop the bleeding, suture him up (inner layer of tissue and then the skin surface), followed by antibiotics and some fluids, including D50 (50% dextrose solution).
Needless to say, we had a very exciting morning and into the early afternoon. Above all, we know that God was with these patients and He was the one who brought them through, we just got to help! (At the morning devotions we prayed for all patients and staff that would be involved today, clearly God was with us).
In the midst of all of this we had more malaria and more motor vehicle accidents. We also had two ENT cases with tonsillar involvement.
Now for the cultural. You would love these people. I learned much today once things settled down a bit. Did you know that in Ghana it is very important to know the day of the week that you were born? That is your name! They say that before you are named you already come with a name….the day of the week. I looked up my birthdate and it was a Tuesday, therefore my name is Kwabena! Cool huh! So I have two names in Ghana, Kwabena and Dennis. There are people that actually have just the day of the week name because the family used that name.
Now for a Ghanian economy lesson. These nurses make less than a dollar an hour. You heard me right. They are professionals to the nth degree. They know so much and they practice in very austere conditions. They are very smart and I have never seen a skill set for many things that nurses do in America, any better than I see in these professionals. Wow! less than a dollar an hour! A motorcycle here costs upwards of $7000 and a Toyota Corolla is upwards of $80000. Yup, you heard that right! So you can imagine how few cars are being driven in this country.
I guess the lesson is, be thankful for the affluence that you have in America. Even America’s poor are rich in the eyes of these people. Oh what we could do if we lived more simply and gave to the poor of the earth. America is less than 5% of the worlds population. If you throw in the rest of the affluent western countries, it is still a fraction of the total. Most of this total lives in conditions like I mentioned above. Oh my! We need to get our values straight. We need to get a heart for the poor. We need to help!