|
|
| news | |
|
|
|
april and may
saturday, 16th may, 2009 |
|
|
| |
|
It has been a really busy couple of months in Benin. The start of an outreach tends to be busy with the hope that things settle down in the middle for a while. At the moment it doesn't look like things are going to slow down any time soon.
|
|
|
| |
|
The hospital has been very busy. So far we have performed over 1200 surgeries with about 16-18 per day being the norm. This means we are reaching a lot of people and making a big physical change in Benin but because of the busyness we do not have the time to spend with our patients caring for their emotional and spiritual needs. Such a big part of our job is building relationships with our patients and showing love to people who have been shunned for years. With the fast pace of things it is hard to find the time to really develop those relationships in the way we want to, which can be frustrating.
|
|
|
| |
|
So far we have been doing general surgery (hernias and goiters) and we do between 6-9 of these per day. We are doing max fax procedures (cleft lips and palates and facial tumour removal) and do about 4 per day. We are doing orthopaedic surgery (club feet, bowed legs, pinning broken bones etc) and do about 3-4 per day. We did do VVF surgery, about 2-3 per day and we'll start this again next week. And lastly plastic surgery... burn contracture releases, skin grafts and large tumour removals.
|
|
|
| |
|
Part of the reason for the difficulties this year in building up relationships is the time factor - we are busy and our patients come and go at such a fast pace we don't have the time to build relationships before they leave. Another difficulty is that English is not the main language here, French is, so conversation is difficult. Many of our patients do not even speak French, they come from the poorer North of the country and speak the tribal dialects of the North. There have been many times when we have a patient on the ward and none of our translators or even the other patients can speak their language. This causes real difficulties!
|
|
|
| |
|
Even with the communication difficulties, and the short turn-around of admissions, there have been many lives transformed so far this outreach. The ward has been full of the smiles and laughter of people who have been given a chance of a normal life. People who now have a complete lip or straight feet, or a limb they can now use. People who are no longer leaking urine. People who now have a normal looking face. It is such a privilege to be part of the transformation that happens daily in our hospital. Lives forever touch and changed.
|
|
|
| |
|
For Drew, the deck department had been incredibly busy over the past few months owing to them being rather short of staff. Even though the ship doesn't often move to different ports there is still a lot to do. Having said that, a few weeks ago we did have to move in order to refuel, but not out of the port, just to the other side to the fuel terminal. This involved Drew doing some crane driving to lift the gangway off and on, and then off, and back on again.
|
|
|
| |
|
Drew has also been doing some scuba diving under the ship to clean the air-conditioning intake valves. A messy job not just because of what is trapped in the intake valves but because of what is in the water he is diving in!
|
|
|
| |
|
Drew also has to coordinate the unloading and delivery of all of the supplies that come to the ship in containers. These may be medical supplies for the hospital, food for us to eat, or resources for any of the departments. Container days always turn out to be very busy days but Drew enjoys them!
|
|
|
> return to home
> browse all news
| |
| | |
|
| | | |