Togo Road- Trip Part 3

The next day, after an early breakfast, Olivia and I joined the doctors and nurses from Hôpital Baptiste Biblique for their morning rounds. We went around to each patient’s bed where the doctors reviewed the current medical status of each patient and discussed what the next plan of care for each patient would be. We entered a ward with inflatable zoo animals hanging from the ceiling, the pediatric ward. The six to seven bed ward was full of ill, cherished, little brown sugar babies and children, laying in metal cribs-beds, many of them suffering from malaria. There little bodies just cannot take it when they get so sick. Many of the little kids barely opened their eyes, even though they were awake, as the doctors listened to their heart sounds and breathing. Poor little ones… We continued to move from patient to patient and every so often one of the current patient’s conditions would remind the doctors of old patient stories. It was amazing to hear the doctors speak… they said, “Remember when all those patients had Typhoid Fever…” something we almost never see in the western world. Or, “do you recall the lady with Tetanus a few weeks back?...” Incredible stories, but so sad because Malaria, Typhoid Fever, and Tetanus are all diseases preventable with immunizations, but people in Africa just don’t have access to primary care the way we do at home. One of the next patient’s we saw was a mother and her day old baby. The little baby appeared well and strong, until we looked closely at his feet. He was born with club feet. The doctors discussed what would be best for the little baby. It was cool that Olivia was there because she was able to give some suggestions and teaching to the doctors regarding some of the treatment techniques for club feet that she has learned from her time working in Orthopedics on the ship. It isn’t that the doctors didn’t know what to do, but none of them are orthopedic doctors or surgeons, so they didn’t know the most recent practice related to newborns with club feet. After we finished rounds, the doctors went on to tell us about some of the other medical conditions they have to treated at their remote African hospital. A common issue…Snake bites… Doctor Russ explained their pharmacy only has a few anti-venoms available and they don’t work for every type of snake bite. If the anti-venom won’t work for the patient and their particular snake bite, the doctors would rather save the anti-venoms for when they will actually make a difference. The patients are not always able to describe which snake bite them, so the doctors at Hôpital Baptiste Biblique have come up with a creative way to determine what snake attacked each patient. One of Doctor Russ’s sons, a true missionary kid, has become extremely skilled in helping snakes meet their maker, skinning them, and then freezing them. He is 19 years old, but has been interested in snakes and he has been studying them for years, convenient because his back yard is a snake’s paradise. Doctor Russ’s son has become so proficient in snakeology (I made up that term, but you get the idea) that if a patient comes to the hospital with a bite, Doctor Russ’s son, is one of the first people the hospital staff call to come identify and determine what snake was involved in the attack. Doctor Russ’s son pulls out his pile of snake skins and frozen snake bodies and there you have it! I’d say that was a python… NASTY!!! People from the village now voluntarily bring snakes to the hospital for the frozen snake collection. I thought this was really resourceful and creative practices of medicine in a remote setting at its finest until I learned the snakes are in the freezer in the guest house I was staying in! Sick! After hearing tons of amazing and impressive medical stories and how God has provided in every situation, even without all the luxuries of modern technology available; Olivia and I moved over to the hospital clinic, the location of the orthopedic pre-screening. Doctor Russ had seen over 100 patients with orthopedic concerns come to his clinic, but their problems were too extensive to treat at his hospital without an orthopedic surgeon available. So our purpose… Olivia’s purpose was to determine if the patient’s could be helped on the ship. It would be a shame to break families financially by having them travel all the way to Lomé next year, if we can’t address their medical conditions on the ship anyway, so we made the trip ourselves. About 100 potential surgical candidates were to come to Hôpital Baptiste Biblique to be assessed. About 20 came, that’s the way it works in Africa! But Olivia did see some people that we can definitely help. A small boy with 6 fingers on each hand, a precious little boy that walks on his tiptoes because his Achilles tendons are too tight, he has never ever been able to put his feel flat, and some others that will have changed lives because of the surgeries available on the ship! But… as always, there were a number of people we cannot help. Pray for them… Keep in mind a little baby girl I saw that has some serious medical concerns, including having her kneecaps on the back side of her legs. I don’t know if she will ever be able to walk and her family and she have a difficult road ahead of them… See you soon…there is more to this Togo adventure story….