Habari A Sabui, Good morning!
It’s 8am in Arusha. I just pulled a mattress onto the roof
and am enjoying one of my last cups of tea while listening to the rooster and
noisy traffic. These sounds, which made it difficult to sleep the first few
nights, will make home seem so empty and quite. It will be another adaptation
back to “normal” life. At least I will still have my taste of Arusha mornings
with the box of 60 teabags I am bringing back to the US :)
Friday was our last official day at the hospital. And to use the most cliché saying possible…it was bittersweet. We watched an interesting elbow reconstruction surgery of the humerus. Unfortunately, our morning was delayed by a staff meeting and that was our only surgery of the day, but an interesting one at least! However, we did see some amazing surgeries on the previous day, including a knee reconstruction surgery on an 8 year old boy with a recurrent dislocating patella. To fix the luxation, the hamstring tendon was harvested, a hole was drilled straight through the patella, and the tendon was threaded through to hold the knee cap in place. After the knee surgery, we got the opportunity to observe a complete leg amputation! The poor gentlemen was 43 (although he looked at least 70!) and was battling diabetic complications. We debated staying for the whole operation, thinking it would take hours, but we were pleasantly surprised by the contrary. Once the fella was sedated and ready to go, the doctor cut through the limb and it took a mere 10-15 min to complete the above-the-knee amputation. Wow, what an incredible (and pretty gross) thing to watch!! Tying off the arteries and suturing the nub closed took a little bit longer but the entire procedure only took 1.5 hours from start to finish. Crazy! I’ll spare everyone the pictures on this one!
Friday was our last official day at the hospital. And to use the most cliché saying possible…it was bittersweet. We watched an interesting elbow reconstruction surgery of the humerus. Unfortunately, our morning was delayed by a staff meeting and that was our only surgery of the day, but an interesting one at least! However, we did see some amazing surgeries on the previous day, including a knee reconstruction surgery on an 8 year old boy with a recurrent dislocating patella. To fix the luxation, the hamstring tendon was harvested, a hole was drilled straight through the patella, and the tendon was threaded through to hold the knee cap in place. After the knee surgery, we got the opportunity to observe a complete leg amputation! The poor gentlemen was 43 (although he looked at least 70!) and was battling diabetic complications. We debated staying for the whole operation, thinking it would take hours, but we were pleasantly surprised by the contrary. Once the fella was sedated and ready to go, the doctor cut through the limb and it took a mere 10-15 min to complete the above-the-knee amputation. Wow, what an incredible (and pretty gross) thing to watch!! Tying off the arteries and suturing the nub closed took a little bit longer but the entire procedure only took 1.5 hours from start to finish. Crazy! I’ll spare everyone the pictures on this one!
Thanks to the help of Google, I just looked up synonyms for ‘bittersweet’.
The first term on one list: ‘American.’ I’m not sure what that is supposed to
mean...maybe our extreme over-use/abuse of the term, thus making it extremely cliché.
Screw it, my last day at the hospital
was, well…, bittersweet. We left the theatre, said our goodbyes to some of the
staff, and walked through the reception/waiting area which was overflowing with
people…People patiently waiting for government healthcare at a facility with
little resources, at an understaffed hospital that only charges $1.60 for a
visit, a small fee that some patients still cannot afford. I thought about the
care these patients were hoping to receive at the hospital (if they can even
afford what is needed), and I reluctantly thought about the quality of care. Pretty
sad, really. Then, I pictured the nice, private hospital we pass everyday on
our way to Mount Meru. I’ve personally never felt as though I couldn’t access
healthcare (though it might be somewhat difficult for me here). At home, it’s
easy to walk into a clinic with the confidence that the facility is equipped
with the necessary means to help with almost anything that could be wrong with
me. Then there are the people of Arusha, the majority struggling to get any
good form of healthcare. Poverty is obviously a huge issue in this country, and
along with that, comes the common poverty ridden diseases – particularly HIV
and AIDS. And when these residents of
Arusha scrounge up a few shillings to pay a visit at Mount Meru Hospital, a
future of good health is still wishful thinking. I know this is poverty, and I
realized life is different here, as it is in many parts of the world. But I
begin to think – Why ME? Why am I given the good life, the lavish life, a life
of too much rather than too little? I am blessed.
We visited The School of St Jude Friday afternoon. The St
Jude slogan: “Fighting poverty through education.” The school is completely
funded by charity and provides free, high-quality primary and secondary
education to 1,800 of the poorest and brightest children in Arusha. It was founded
in 2002 by Australian Gemme Sisia, whom graciously agreed to meet one-on-one
with Grace, Ben, and I during our visit. While sitting on the beautiful lawn surrounded
by a colorful, home-made playground and a plethora of animal painted buses,
Gemme took us back to her earlier days in the 1900’s when she volunteered at a
school in Uganda. She explained that at the time she was “young and naïve” but
she still couldn’t help but to be bothered by the education system. She notices
that only a certain percentage of kids, those with enough money, could afford
to attend the school in Uganda. This didn’t seem right to Gemme, who knew there
were plenty of other “smart” kids without the means to pay for an education.
Long story short, Gemme took her idea of a “free” school to Arusha, where she
opened up St. Jude’s for poor students demonstrating an eagerness to learn, a
basic level of “smartness,” and appreciation for the sponsors keeping the
school running. Now, the school has expanded to three campuses, provides
boarding for 1,000 students, and employs over 400 Tanzanians…all helping to
fight poverty through education.
The point of this story, besides it simply being a cool story,
is that it made me think about Mount Meru Hospital. Could this same idea
possibly be implemented at a charity funded hospital in Tanzania? Would it be
possible to find a way for sponsors to finance the healthcare needs of impoverished
families in Tanzania? The idea creates many questions on how such a system
could be run, and I’m sure it would be expensive to jump start. Just a few ideas
floating around in my head. Good thing I have 30+ hours of travel time this
week to think about everything! Turning a miserable 30 hours of sitting on my bum to a bit of positive thinking?lol Anyways, the hospital has certainly
opened my eyes to the facets of healthcare in this third world country. I know
that there is an increasing need of Physician Assistants in America, especially
in rural areas after the passing of the Affordable Care Act. I hope to help
with these problems in America for the time being. But I also have future
visions of traveling abroad once again (hopefully next time as a PA!) to help
with healthcare in a country like Tanzania. Who knows where the next place will
be, or how long I will stay, but either way, Tanzania will always have a place
in my heart.
While my trip is winding to an end, I am grateful to have 3
more days to spend practicing my Swahili with the locals (if you can even call
it Swahili ;)), walking the streets of Arusha, and visiting the hospital at
least one more time this week. Ben and I are getting ready for a walk to town
to pull out our last bout of donation money. I have been trying to upload the order
form on FB, but am butting heads with technology so I’ll keep working on that
for those of you that have donated. We are excited to deliver our last load of
supplies tomorrow!! We are also visiting St. Jude’s school one last time
tomorrow to sit-in on a school assembly and to see how some of the classes
operate. I will post more pictures soon!
For now…here are a few random pictures I have tried to capture
of Arusha city life and its people. I still need to take more!
I just looked back to the top of this post and realized how
long it is. Sorry for the lengthiness…apparently I’m in a chatty mood this
morning :)
Hope you are all having a peaceful night sleep back home! Xoxo
Mama and Matotos
Masai villager with the traditional Masai stick
buying grapes on our way home from the hospital
look at this little fella!
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