The baby held in this photo is suffering from pneumonia. I’m in the process of explaining the disease and treatment to her parents, seated, using Portuguese. However, the parents are rural people and don’t understand Angola’s official language. Instead, the pastor to the left is translating into the language of their own Cunene people. […]
Access to objective clinical information is one great obstacle to mobile medical care for underserved people. For two years in the 1990s, myself and a team of Angolans served five locations near the city of Huambo with weekly clinics. Our equipment mainly consisted of vaccinations, twenty-drugs, and a child weight scale. Objective data was
These children live at Tchincombe – a 200,000-acre ranch in southern Angola. Launched twenty years ago, this vast project of the Angola Union churches has multiple interventions including agriculture, primary school education, provision of drinkable water, and intermittent clinics. Tchincombe is also home to Stirling and Donna Foster, sweet friends whom I met during
“I have headaches, terrible fevers, nausea, weakness, muscle aches and worsening vision.” Dona Maria was animated as she described her symptoms at CEML Hospital. “I also have pain on urination, back pain, dizziness, ringing in my ears, and tingling in my toes.” I proceeded with a physical exam which reveal no anomaly. I
He started to laugh as he uttered these words to me, but then suddenly cringed with pain. Solomon, a young man, winced and grabbed at his right side. Three days earlier Solomon developed fever, some abdominal cramping, and just a little dysentery. Such illnesses are quite common here in Angola. Solomon drake some traditional
Senhor Alfanzo was riding his tiny motor bike in the city of Benguela when he was struck broadside by a truck. His right leg, hit full on, lay fractured with broken femur and tibia bones both protruding through the skin of his thigh and lower leg. A local healthcare facility applied a full leg
Twelve-year old Pedrito was riding on a motorcycle when the driver lost control and sent the boy flying. His leg was found bent at a right angle, and the child was immediately transported to CEML Hospital. Traumatic injuries – especially those of vehicular origin – are among the top causes of both years-of-life lost
Senhor Miguel has suffered increasing shortness of breath for one year. When he arrived here at CEML Hospital last week his heart exam revealed a loud systolic murmur, along with swollen legs and signs of fluid in his lungs. The potential causes are myriad, and important to distinguish in order to select the most
“Why do you keep going back to Angola? The visa is almost unobtainable, the journey brutal and expensive, and working conditions backwards at best. What’s more, they don’t pay you. In fact, you pay for the privilege of sweating it out!” After two year living in Angola and thirteen annual visits, such questions and
We all recall the devastating cholera epidemic that swept through Port-au-Prince following Haiti’s 2011 earthquake. Whenever urban centers are disrupted the risk of cholera, causing rapid death via dehydration, is predictably high. So, it is laudable that now, just one month following Hurricane Matthew, history’s largest-ever emergency cholera vaccination is underway with the goal