Welcome to my blog! I haven’t written anything yet because I haven’t known where to start. I still don’t know where to start, but I will just try to begin and see where it all leads.
It’s been 1 full week since I said good-bye to my husband and got on a plane in Wichita, Kansas to begin the journey to Cameroon. I flew from Wichita to O’Hara in Chicago to Brussels, Belgium to Yaunde, Cameroon, to Duoala, Cameroon. Twenty-six hours including lay-overs. A driver met me at the airport and took me to a rest house (similar to a hostel but this one run by a Catholic church) for the night. In the morning we loaded up the pick-up truck and began the drive to Bamenda. Little did I expect what was in store. The drive turned out to be about 6 hours, not because the distance is that great, but because you can’t often go more than 30-45 mph due to the condition of the roads. To say there are many pot-holes is a great misspeak – there are many “pot-trenches” and sometimes just inconvenient pieces of paved road. Additionally, there are giant speed bumps every 1-2 miles it seems. The final 1.5 hours of the drive were over dirt road which is extremely uneven and bumpy. To my surprise, once we reached Bamenda we still had another 2 hour drive over similar or worse roads to bring me to my final destination. Needless to say, I was very tired and very relieved to reach the rest home (guest house) where I am staying for the duration of my rotation here. Even my short time in the country has helped me to appreciate our highway system in the US that I usually just take for granted. However, the Cameroonian government has made large strides in getting highways paved and it certainly could have been worse.
This first week I have been working in the out-patient department of the hospital. The building is a rather new building and is very nice. It houses several rooms in which to see patients, a small emergency department, the outpatient pharmacy and lab, the pay station, and the admission offices when one is being admitted to inpatient. There is also a PT department that does outpatient and inpatient but is in another location.
It is hard to describe the hospital because it is so different than what I am accustomed to. Behind the outpatient building there are a series of one-story buildings connected by covered walk-ways. Each building is labeled with which ward it is. There is a Men’s Ward, Women’s Ward, Pediatric Ward, Maternity Ward, Observation Ward, Private Ward, Surgical Ward, and 1 or 2 others. These essentially are the different units. However, upon entering the wards there really are no divisions of the patient beds except by a mosquito net/curtain, which are all pulled up during the day. Another thing that is very different is that every admitted patient must have a family member who does the bedside care for that patient. The family member must provide meals for the patient, must wash the patient’s clothes, must help use the bathroom if help is needed, and many other things. The nurses are responsible for many other things but not bedside care. So, upon entering each ward, you encounter many people at once, especially if it raining outside and all of the family members are stuck inside.
In outpatient we have been seeing similar concerns to what we see in the US. Hypertension, diabetes, headache, UTI, etc. There is a lot of HIV here, but there is a separate department called the Treatment Center that handles HIV follow-up so I haven’t been working with that as of yet. I have been working with Mr. Boniface who is a nurse-practitioner here and is an extremely qualified practitioner. He is passionate about patient education and I have really enjoyed working with him. He is also passionate about questioning patients about their life after death and if they are confident about where they will spend eternity. I have really appreciated his commitment to quality medical care and genuine spiritual care as well.
I am in the English-speaking part of Cameroon, which has allowed me to communicate with patients more freely. However, what I didn’t expect is that many of the people speak what they call “Pigeon”. This is a language that is loosely based on English but is certainly a dialect of its own. Mr. Boniface speaks very clear Pigeon so I have been able to pick up a few words and syntax that have helped me communicate with those who only speak Pigeon, but I still require translation with those patients. Additionally, there is a local language called Lanso which is completely foreign to me. Thankfully, many of the patients bring a family member to help translate.
There is so much more to tell, but I am out of time for now. Thanks for your prayers and your thoughts and your patience! May God bless you and keep you, Racquel