Helping and Healing

Today was a busy day in Kenya.  We had the opportunity to serve many men, women, and children today in the local community.  We served a total of 189 patients in 7 hours.  We treated a variety of medical complaints ranging from aches and pains to tropical diseases.  We provided health maintenance education, deworming medications, vitamins, antibiotics and reflux medications among many others.  When we were limited by our medications that we brought, we made referrals to the local pharmacy and made referrals to local providers for follow up care.  Pain control was limited to acetaminophen and Ibuprofen, but the patients were very grateful for the pain relief it provided as these medications are difficult for the community to access with limited income.

The pharmacy was set up and run in the morning by the mission team.  We had people assigned to filling out the prescription label, dispensing the medication, and then educating them on the plan of care.  A local Hope Without Borders member was able to translate for the people who spoke Swahili and helped with the educational teach-back.  In the afternoon, a local pharmacist came to help with double checking the medication orders, acting as a translator in Swahili, and educating the team on how to write, read, and adjust prescriptions for the local people to understand.  We filled over 350 prescriptions today.

For the people who were vision impaired, we were able to provide glasses to almost 40 people.  This will help them read, work, go to school, and provide for their families.  Brandon, who was working the eyeglass station, was amazed to see the expression on their faces when they were able to see clearly.  These were inexpensive glasses which were purchased in the United States.  Unfortunately, we ran   of distance glasses during the day.  The last pair of distance glasses was given to a man who was a teacher and had trouble seeing what his students were doing in the back of the classroom.  Because of a pair of glasses, he will function better at work and his employment status will not suffer due to vision impairment.

This clinic would not have been possible without the help from the community.  We used a local chapel’s facilities for the clinic and the pharmacy.  We used local translators to help translate from Swahili to English.  We used a local Doctor and a local pharmacist to help us see and serve the patients.  They thanked us for our help, and we were so grateful for their help. 

We were struck by the differences between healthcare in the United States and this small Kenyan community.  We were frustrated that many of the people could not afford medical visits to manage their chronic diseases and said they could not afford to go to the pharmacy and fill their blood pressure prescriptions.  Many people struggled with nutrition concerns that we were not able to help them resolve but were able to provide some temporary supplementation with vitamins.  Even more scary is the local talk that a drought is worsening because of the decreased rain fall this season.   This could mean worsening hardships in an already stressed community. However, the gratitude by the residents of the communities was apparent and makes volunteering a reward that is difficult to articulate into words.