The whole village must have heard a “muzungu daktari” (white doctor) has arrived. The queues at the Dispensary these last two mornings have been very looooong, but the villagers are nothing but patient. They sit in the shade with their troubles, wafting away the mosquitoes, and smile shyly when I walk past from one clinic room to the other. There is a light of Faith in their eyes, which touches my heart profoundly… and also heightens my stress levels significantly!
I am walking the delicate balance between wanting to be of service to the best of my ability and also keeping the expectations of the villagers in check. I am a third year medical student, and NOT a qualified doctor. The difference between the two seems lost on the people here. They seem to think that the complementary therapies I do are all a sort of medical treatment too, so I can dispense paracetamol, hypnotherapy and remedial massage to their equal gratitude! This is becoming a truly integrated clinic, to my absolute delight… I am also teaching the healthcare assistant and laboratory analyst who work here as much as I can remember from medical school. They learn quickly and with pleasure, just like the primary school kids next door. There is such gratitude in receiving knowledge here.
So far, in just two days of official clinic work, I have been able to help and advise patients with a very wide selection of problems, such as rheumatoid arthritis, sinusitis, bone infection (the toe will need amputation), amenorrhoea, diarrhoea, penis discolouration (!), contact dermatitis, psoriasis, congestive heart failure (thank you Dr. Jeltsje Tack in Belgium for the phone consult!), migraine, flu, sore shoulders (he walked out after 20 minutes with a BIG smile on his face from the quick sports massage I gave him), anger management issues (perfect hypnotherapy client), peptic ulcer, high blood pressure, infertility, chest infection (suspected tuberculosis), and so on.
The utter lack of clinical resources is very hard though. The only haematology analyser on Lamu island at the district hospital has been out of order for weeks, so I have no way to send the patients for Full Blood Counts. That’s the FIRST thing that is done at European hospitals whenever someone is admitted. It would be wonderful to have a working one here at the Dispensary so the laboratory analyst can use it. The Dispensary has also had its nebuliser taken away by a part-time doctor who left, so when one of the many asthmatics in Shela village has a serious attack, we are in a dire situation. We also cannot measure oxygen blood saturation because the £10 piece of equipment needed has never been supplied. And that’s before even talking about the situation with the medicine.
We do not have any more amoxicillin, ibuprofen, antacid syrup, erythromycin, multivitamins for children, salbutamol sprays, topical corticosteroids, anti-cramp and anti-nausea medication for the many cases of diarrhoea I have already seen. The list goes on and on. We don’t even have saline for washing wounds, or burn dressings!
All these things should be funded by the government, but no money comes. This means that Wendy Mandy, who built this Dispensary 10 years ago, has been fundraising for these most basic of medical supplies through the years, and when they run out, well, people just die completely unnecessarily from easily treatable conditions.
It’s heart-breaking to experience first-hand, after I sort of knew about this situation conceptually from reading about it and seeing it on the TV. Here I am, in the middle of it, and trying to help people with next to no tools.
I know I cannot stem the tide on my own, but I have been giving out some of the medicines I brought with me from a last-minute shopping spree at Boots at Heathrow airport, because that’s the only supply of ibuprofen in the village. My lovely neighbour Nickie also gave me some anti-spasmodics before I left London, and I have also been handing out those to the patients crying with cramps from food poisoning. I also happened to buy an Aspivenin device at Heathrow to suck out mosquito, snake, fish, bee and scorpion poison in case I got bitten. I use it to treat the many mosquito bites I am getting despite using insect repellant very generously on my body, but there are people dying on the next-door island from snake bites because they do not have this simple £15 device there.
I would like to try to change this situation as much as I can while I am here. If anyone is moved to help, either by donating towards medicines and basic equipment, or by sending whatever they have at home to me here, then we can make a great difference to these villagers together. For some months at least with the medication, and for many years with the basic equipment.
For example, do you have sterile pre-packaged wound dressings that you do not need at home? An Aspivenin device you only use when on holiday in the tropics that you could replace next time you go via an airport? Boxes of ibuprofen? Tubes of topical corticosteroid cream? Ear drops? Eye drops? Bandages? Cold spray for pulled muscles (the football team especially requested that one!)… We would use them all well before they are of date if they were sent here!
If you can spare money donations towards equipment, I will use it to get the urgently needed nebuliser that will save an asthmatics life next time they have an acute attack, an oxymeter to check how much oxygen is getting into their bloodstream, an ophthalmoscope to check on eye disease, high blood pressure and diabetes advancement, and a haematology analyser so I can keep tabs on the patients’ immune response to infections and medications among many others, and more Aspivenin devices so I can give them to the outreach workers on other islands.
Dear Universe, here is crossing my fingers that the cavalry arrives soon, in whatever form it takes!
Marcus Sorensen
The Dispensary
PO Box 323
80500 Lamu
KENYA
For donations of money, please use my PayPal account so I can place orders online for the equipment.
ASANTE SANA! (Thank you very much!)
