Week 9: The Clinics

Let me start by explaining the remainder of our facilities. The complex that houses the HOPE Center and the local hospital, Hopital Be, also houses several of our clinics and infrastructure projects. The Ponsetti clinic is tasked with training a local team on how to use the Ponsetti method. The Ponsetti method is a method of correcting club feet without invasive surgery, in children under 3 years old. The patients wear casts for several weeks that slowly realign their feet (getting new casts every week), then they have a small procedure to cut the achilles tendon (which takes 3 weeks to heal) and finally they get another set of casts to wear at night for the next couple of years (the same way you wear a retainer to sleep), which ensures that the feet don’t return back to how they were (which is what they want to do). They then get physiotherapy that teaches them how to walk properly. This clinic will continue after the Africa Mercy leaves, being led by the team that we’ve trained.

We also have our OBF Clinic, which houses our ladies before and after their OBF surgeries. It is really neat that the ladies who are waiting to go for surgery get to spend time with the ladies who have already had their surgery. It is very encouraging for them and they build a wonderful community. This clinic will be handed over to the Freedom From Fistula foundation once we leave and they will continue the great work that is being done there. Our OBF team leader will also be staying with the clinic once the ship leaves, which I think is amazing and shows the love and care that our crew have for these people.

People lined up for one of our dental screenings.

The HOPE Center also houses the Dental Clinic, whose workload is enormous. They see upwards of 70 patients a day, which is incredible. They do a lot of work involving cavities and extractions, and use the opportunity to teach the people about preventative care for their teeth. These are the kinds of things that help prevent the facial tumours that we see, because often they are caused by infected or impacted teeth. The crew serving in the dental clinic often only come for 2 weeks because the work is intensive and far more than they would do at home. The dental team does 2 screenings a week, one on Monday and one on Thursday. People line up outside and the team leader goes out to see who they can help and provides them with a number. They have also gone to the local schools, prisons and orphanages. Our dental team is often not talked about, but they are doing amazing work. Typically we also have an eye clinic and provide cataract surgeries (among other things), but in Madagascar they found that there was no need. This is because the eye sight is fairly good, and there are other NGOs that are providing this service here. However they discovered that the teeth are particularly bad because of the high level of sugar in the Malagasy diet (including a lot of sweetened condensed milk).

Before/after of one of the renovated OR blocks.

The HOPE Center site also houses our Biomed facility, which is where we have trained 6 people to fix and maintain all the equipment that the hospital houses. This is a big problem when organizations donate equipment but don’t teach the people how to clean it or repair it if anything happens. The training of biomed technicians is meant to help ensure the longevity of donated equipment. Lastly, we have our infrastructure projects, which include a renovated classroom for the university that is attached to the hospital, as well as four fully renovated and equipped operating blocks. The difference in the before and after pictures is amazing. Our capacity and medical capacity building teams have done an amazing job of transforming these spaces and training people to make sure that our impact continues when we leave.

Two new things: I can’t pick just one, so this week it’s going to be two! 1) Last Sunday, my friend Caitlyn and I went to a church picnic that was hosted at the nearby lemur park. It was really fun to connect with the people in the church we have been attending. We played Frisbee with the kids, took lots of pictures with them, shared food with them, and had a great time. I think my favourite part was driving on the back roads of Madagascar with the windows down, singing to some country music with Caitlyn. Definitely one of the best adventures since I’ve been here.  2) On Saturday, we went to the ‘bus station’ and hopped on a ‘bus’ to go to a beach called foulpointe. The word bus is misleading because it was really a van where they crammed as many people in as possible. This was quite the experience. Our time at the beach was very wonderful and relaxing and we ate some delicious food. On the way back, the van broke down a few times, and the lights stopped working so one guy shone a flashlight out the front. That made for quite the crazy ride back in the dark, but we eventually made it back in one piece!

This week we said goodbye to Natalie.

Two things I observed: Again, it was such a crazy week that I have to go with two. 1) While my job can be loads of fun, it can also be exhausting. Monday started off with a 12hr day of filming and I was exhausted from then on. The media team was great but also pushed some boundaries, meaning I had to keep a constant eye on them. I definitely feel like I could have done my job better as some things slipped by me and had to be corrected later. I learned a lot, especially about how much leeway to give the teams. 2) This week was bittersweet because we said goodbye to Natalie, one of my closest friends aboard the ship. About mid-week, we walked up to our room door to see a notice that said two new roommates would be arriving Sunday. That was exciting but also very sad. On Friday night we had a wonderful bonfire on the beach, smores, dinner and then laid in the sand looking at the stars and sang songs together. Early Saturday morning she was gone, and Sunday brought in our two new lovely roommates. This month will be filled with these goodbyes as every Saturday means someone from our bus family is leaving.

Dr.Gary Parker with our founder, Don Stephens.

One thing I felt God was telling me: I always knew that God was a God of big miracles, but this week I learned that God is also a God of small miracles. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but this week I was really blown away by how He works everything out. The Friday before the team came, I had no patients for them to interview, no patient for them to take home and no maxfax surgery for them to see, which is what they wanted. All the things I had lined up previously had fallen through because either patients were sick or crew was sick or things just weren’t working out. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was trying to do it too much on my own. But God took care of everything. Last minute on Friday, they told me of a good patient to follow but she was being operated on first thing Monday morning, and typically the OR team never lets observers in on Monday because they are doing orientation on new staff. However, miraculously, there were going to be no new team members involved in this particular surgery and the OR team graciously allowed us to film it. Chaplaincy talked to the patient as soon as she was admitted Sunday evening, got her consent and early Monday morning we went down to the ward to interview her before her surgery. The timing even worked out that in between when she went in for anesthesia and when we were to view the surgery, we managed to get a spontaneous, last minute interview with Don Stephens (our founder and President), who was leaving the ship in about one hour. The entire week was filled with small miracles like this, where amazing things worked out that had absolutely nothing to do with me or my abilities. It was very humbling and amazing to watch unfold. As a ship, we have been going through the book of Esther in the lead up to lent, trying to find where God is in this book of the Bible where He is never once mentioned by name. This week very much reminded me of this – I saw God in all kinds of places, working his miracles, even though He was never obvious or mentioned by name. “Every blessing you pour out I’ll turn back to praise”, I want to turn everything that happened this week back to God and praise Him for His love and goodness.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s."
-Psalm 103:1-5 NKJV

Filming in a local village with the team from Denmark's TV2 Biggest program.