Happy Easter and warming weather to our friends up north! Here in Angola, we are approaching the end of rainy season and planting our sweet potatoes! Since our last writing, a lot has happened, good and sad. One disappointment is that our rural medicine training program is paused because our partner hospital is unable send residents this year. However, we've still had opportunities to teach: Daniel giving classes on communicating danger signs, organizing clinical presentations and severe malaria and Priscila at local communities, sharing about healthy pregnancies and womens health. In March she spoke at the first national conference for religious and governmental partnerships in prevention of obstetric fistula.
We are thankful that malaria season has not been as severe as in recent years, but likely due to a poor maize harvest, there have been increasing numbers of children with malnutrition admitted. It's often heartbreaking to see small severely malnourished children die within 24 hours. Since the municipal hospital across town has not had nutritional supplementation for quite some time, it was was a blessing to receive (from a partner mission hospital) "Manna Packs" (supplemental meals for malnourished kids). Please pray for family members to champion the 24 hour care these kids need and for communities to support the mothers of malnourished children.
Let's show some pictures! As always, the people in these photos have given consent. The animals had no choice.
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| Pitanga fruits and their seeds. Naomi patiently labored, cutting the fruit off seeds, boiling it down and making yummy jam for us in March. |
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| Celebrating the health of our colleague who suffered post-cesarean section complications and needed a perisplenic drain. After a bumpy postpartum course, we are glad she is home with her family and baby, happily recovering |
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| This is also a celebration--Domingas is here with our patient, A, who had been dependent on oxygen for a month due to severe TB and malnutrition. He remained resilient throughout his time in our hospital, even checking how I was doing, asking about my own health and even family. It's such a delight to be able to witness at times the slow but gradual improvement in our patients. In A's case, it was seeing his breathing and weight improve over time. In addition to that, to see his curiosity and engagement in conversation grow. Thanks to your support, we were able to assist in his hospital fees. |
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| Ok, I didn't see this one coming. A 13 year old girl complaining of chronic cough after having been admitted with a bout of malaria. As it turned out, she swallowed a coin (the bright round object on the X-ray image) on a dare 2 years ago and didn't tell anyone when she felt it get stuck. We transferred her to another mission hospital and after esophagoscopy and thoracotomy, it was removed from her esophagus without further complications. |
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| Some things are no different, whether in Angola or the USA. Dr. Kirsten Ward, an EM/FM resident from the States, came and rotated in March and helped in the ER, the wards and even with procedures. Here, she is doing hallway/floor medicine on pediatrics ward, something she knows very well from working in busy ER's in Delaware. Thanks for your flexibility, Dr. Kirsten! |
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| Priscila with nurse Avelina performing point of care ultrasound on the labor ward. With more ultrasounds available at our hospital, Priscila has been able to teach and emphasize with our OB nurses practice in making point of care decisions based on ultra sounding at the bedside. This is a growing skill for our nurses and has already improved the care they have provided. Basic but critical diagnoses such as placenta previa, baby's position, oligohydramnios, ectopics, among other things have been identified by our staff. |
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| Dr. Kim and Mr. Rod, thanks for visiting! Kim helped with patient care and they both helped in Rod's project of taking physical photos for patients to keep. Kids, mothers and staff loved them! |
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| Just another outpatient consult day for Priscila: lots of women waiting to receive Priscila's care on her clinic day. Wednesdays end up quite long and tiring. However, I look forward to bringing her lunch and hoping to catch a few minutes together to pause and refresh together. |
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| Dr. Kim joined Priscila in a community health outreach this past week, performing prenatal ultrasounds and consults. Thanks for your supporting in helping us with a portable ultrasound! |
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| Groundwork under way for maternity ward renovations at the hospital, through the support of several organizations. We are eager to see the improvements unfold which will include more space for triage and patient care |
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| Nurse Amandio with palliative care conference leaders in Lubango. Earlier this month, Amandio and our fistula program coordinator, Julia were invited to a palliative care conference day in Lubango. This really helped them both, and they have both brought more motivation and compassion towards our palliative care patients. I hope to share a post on this soon. It's been really encouraging to see our care for patients nearing the end of their lives grow and mature. |
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| Camouflaged in the grass, 9 chicks are following their mother hen, Speckles. Our family enjoys our many chickens around the property. . . so long as they poop away from the veranda! |
