{"id":124,"date":"2014-11-07T20:45:50","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T20:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/?p=124"},"modified":"2014-11-11T23:37:20","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T23:37:20","slug":"come-to-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/2014\/11\/07\/come-to-ghana\/","title":{"rendered":"Come to Ghana!"},"content":{"rendered":"

You will fall in love with these people!\u00a0 I guarantee it!\u00a0 They have a kindness and a love like you have rarely seen before.\u00a0 It is a joy and a privilege to be here to help and to learn!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today I went on outreach with a team of four.\u00a0 It was great to get into the public health piece directly into the communities.\u00a0 We went to two villages and did primary care, vaccinations (including dpt, polio, rotavirus, pneumococcal, mmr, and even yellow fever) and weight checks for children under 2 years of age.\u00a0 Vitamin A is given age specific at 6 months.\u00a0 Many of the children were either not gaining or actually losing weight.\u00a0 We also distributed mosquito nets for families as needed.\u00a0 The goal is to reduce childhood mortality (mostly from malaria and child hood diseases) and to reduce maternal mortality by doing more prenatal care.\u00a0 We didn’t have any mothers to be that I could tell (although, it is not always easy to keep up with the language barrier!).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our journey began with a fairly long drive on challenging roads (no roads in some places, I swear we drove through at least 3 small lakes and some moon craters!).\u00a0 It reminded me a bit of the drive up to Loi Tai Leng in Burma!\u00a0 It always amazes me how we make it through and don’t get vehicle breakdown!\u00a0 God is good and roads like this are the reality here, so, get used to it!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One thing that surprised me is that they don’t routinely give deworming medicine to these kids when they do outreach.\u00a0 Worms are common from contaminated water and food.\u00a0 You can see some huge bellies on some kids and that is quite often worms.\u00a0 No wonder kids don’t gain weight, they are sharing their food with “friends”!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps I can speak with leadership at some point and suggest this need.\u00a0 Albendezole and mebedizole is relatively inexpensive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back at the “ER ranch” and I hit the ground running, about 12 noon.\u00a0 We had student nurses today (every Friday and again on Saturday mornings).\u00a0 They are eager to learn and I get to spend alot of time precepting and teaching.\u00a0 I love it!\u00a0 We had a hodgepodge of patients (as usual).\u00a0 One patient had a reaction to the blood she was getting, stopped it and gave her hydrocortisone (they don’t have benadryl).\u00a0 She was fine and the good news she didn’t react till the unit was almost all transfused so she still got the benefit.\u00a0 Lots of kids and then at 2:30 we had a baby rushed in who was seizing.\u00a0 He had a temp of almost 104 and was likely malaria.\u00a0 It was tough going and I gave valium and a tylenol suppository.\u00a0 Seizure continued for what seemed like forever!\u00a0 God intervened and the child stopped seizing briefly.\u00a0 This gave me time to get an IV in his sweet little hand and blood sent to lab.\u00a0 He seized briefly again but soon he was somewhat better with fever reduced.\u00a0 I went back tonight after dinner and he was much much better, positive for malaria and being treated.\u00a0 He cried when I touched his forehead but at least he was feisty and focusing and responding!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tonight we had a road traffic accident and patients everywhere!\u00a0 (even laying on the floor, not enough beds).\u00a0 I tell you, this is a great place to practice!\u00a0 Innovation is key and flexibility is everything!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"IMG_0780\"<\/a> \"IMG_0788\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"IMG_0776\"<\/a> \"IMG_0778\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You will fall in love with these people!\u00a0 I guarantee it!\u00a0 They have a kindness and a love like you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/dennissalter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}