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| Taveta Road - Trucks Stuck |
| REFLECTIONS ON 2016 |
The
BBC announced four major good things that happened in 2016. I didn't
think they were anywhere near as good as what I could think up. So here
are some hopeful signs from my point of view!
1. This Taveta Road has been finished and I will drive over it
in January to get to two of our clinics. I'll take pictures to show the
improvement. What used to take us 5-6 hours now takes only two hours to
go 60 miles.
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| Taveta Road to Tanzania 2013 |
2. A new Ebola vaccine will be ready for production in 2018. It
was given to 6000 people and no one developed Ebola!
3. For the first time in
my 13 years in Kenya I saw local priests wash the feet of women and children on Holy Thursday.
4. Guinea Worm is almost eradicated from the world!
5. Mr. Salah Sabdow Farah, the deputy headmaster at the primary
school in Mandera was on a bus attacked by Al-
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| St. Patrick Dispensary over Bangaladesh |
Shabaab terrorists in northern
Kenya. They wanted to kill the Christians and he died protecting them.
6. The presidential elections in the US were free,
fair and peaceful. Currently the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and the Gambia have people dying every
day for the sake of the democratic process.
But I save my most precious memories for the work that was done with the health care workers, Justice and Peace workers and priests of St. Patrick Parish in Bangaladesh Informal Settlement.
7. Mary was protected from incestuous uncles and is back in school and home with her 80 year old grandmother.
8. Salome (Mary's aunt) had ulcers on her legs for 20 years. They are now almost completely healed!
9. Asha, a 17 year old emaciated girl with childhood diabetes who comes from a completely destitute family has gained 12 pounds and is well controlled on insulin.
10. Bob, age 9, was rescued from despicable abuse and had four surgical procedures to correct the damage done to his body. He is now in an orphanage and happy and healthy.
11. The Kenyan government doctors have been on strike since the 5th of December. When I returned on 8th Dec I contacted my driver, Julius, to be sure he could take me to a clinic the following week. But a day before the clinic I couldn't reach him on the phone. After searching the contacts I knew, I found him in a small private clinic lying on the floor in deep coma and unresponsive. I told the family he needed to be moved to a hospital. We had examined him in October and he was well but this clinic found that one test was positive for HIV and they couldn't confirm it. Because the family could not afford private hospitals he ended up in the government hospital where I saw him four days later. The nurse told me I couldn't act as a doctor but in a 'social' visit I could see that with the antibiotics he was being given he was beginning to open his eyes and could move his arms and legs. The nurse told me to take him away as there were no doctors on duty. I thanked her for being on the job and told her that he needed to have a test to confirm HIV. She said they would do it. When I got to St. Patrick dispensary shortly thereafter the clinic officer, Dalmas, suggested that we should send our lab technician to do the test. So I did. I had my driver take her over to the hospital and they refused for her to do the test. We also found out that he hadn't had his dose of antibiotic for the day, even though the family had bought and brought it to the hospital and given it to the nurses.
I asked Dalmas if we could use the vacant room downstairs to bring him for nursing and treatment. He was agreeable. I asked the parish priest, Fr. Gabriel. He was agreeable. So we had the family bring him to this small room in a slum where a nurse and clinical officer looked after him very professionally for the next six days with my help. We found he was fluid overloaded and needed an injection to get rid of the fluid. He woke up and started to eat pilau within a couple of hours! We found he had a bedsore. We found he had HIV and the team from Mombasa CBHC, another diocesan health center, came to bring medicines that he would need to treat several possible infections...TB menningitis, encephalitis, cryptococcal menningitis. I saw him on Christmas day and he was still struggling for his life. He needed a brain scan. The President had announced that not only the 26th but also the 27th would be public holidays, so the earliest this could be done was on the 28th. The family wanted to take him back to their rural home. Fr. Gabriel anointed him and he left on the 27th.
It took two days to get home because the car broke down on the way. When they arrived, the big referral hospital was closed due to the continuing doctors' strike. So, as of this moment, Julius is still alive, being cared for by his family at home with the training they received from our staff and the medicines that we sent with them. He is a very strong man and I pray everyday that he will recover.
I am so proud of the staff at this facility and how professionally they worked together. Despite bad management early in the illness, the hard work over the Christmas holiday and our limited resources, we used what we had to make accurate diagnoses and give proper treatment. Julius is still alive and that is no small feat. This dispensary in an informal settlement did better than the district and referral hospitals. Whether Julius lives or dies, he has finally had loving, professional health care which is what every person deserves.
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Today we celebrate the
feast of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and World Day of Peace. Pope Francis has
chosen the theme
NONVIOLENCE: A STYLE OF POLITICS
FOR PEACE
May
the peace of a child born over 2000 years ago lead us this coming year to
follow him with the love he brought for each of us!
