Work Begins....And Continues

Begins…

While Doug, Cindy, Sheila and Laura joined the Mazimbu staff for morning meeting, the rest of the team met with our seven translators to discuss expectations and goals. All but one of the translators have worked with us in past years so their prior experience helped as they began their work with us.

The hospital is shaped like an inverted “U” with Mazimbu reception on the west end of the “U”. A table was set up on the east end of the “U” for us, which became our own reception area. Pati’s job is to register patients coming for our help, working with one of our experienced translators, Epsilon. Some initial screening is done to look for people that might need a surgical resolution for their problem. There are many more non-surgical patients that are hoping that the US doctors can cure their ills and one of the Mazimbu doctors, Dr Richard, who is working with us as one of our team doctors, sees those patients.

After reception, the patient is shown through to our next station, triage, where Laura or Sheila work with their translators, Sara and Margret, to take the patient’s history and physical. One of the challenges of the triage station is weeding out the one real reason why the patient wants to see the doctor; most patients have a very long list of problems. Laura and Sheila make the decision on whether to send the patient to see Doug or Dr. Richard. Anna and Bethany work with the triage desk and once the patient is done there, one of them will walk with the patient to take them to sit on a bench outside of the office of the doctor they will be seeing.

Meggan works as the helper in Dougs office, managing the flow of patients and generally helping to facilitate and communicate with the rest of the team. Doug, working with his translator, Denis, makes the final decision on whether surgery is the best course of treatment. If that is the route to be taken, labs will be ordered which are processed by the lab on premises. The patient waits for the results and once those are reviewed and approved, the patient is added to our surgery schedule. By the end our first day, six procedures were scheduled and that number will continue to grow each day.

If surgery is not indicated, they will likely be given medicine to help their condition. Doug has been on this team many times and knows what medicines he is likely to need; those meds are part of our medical gear so most of our patients visit with Glennis and Eileen, who are working our pharmacy. Samwel, who first worked with us last year, stays close to help Glennis and Eileen when they need to explain the meds to our patients.

Dr. Richard is, of course, able to work without translation, but our newest translator, Obale, has been managing the patient flow outside of Dr. Richards exam room.

Nancy is circulating throughout all of the stations, helping wherever there is a need and spreading goodwill with all of our patients.

It is a point of humor on the team that we have two Chris’ with us. Chris Buzzelli, is a scrub tech and his job is to assist Doug in his surgeries. Chris Pope is a retired general contractor and is working as a fundi (fixer) with Lance. The humor comes from their names. Chris Buzzelli has become “tall Chris” and Chris Pope has become “short Chris.” Refer to the picture to see why we are so amused. Kishumu, working with us for the third year, helps the fundis as they hunt through Morogoro for unique parts or for team supplies that need to be purchased each day.

And finally, Cindy is available for the whole team and for the Mazimbu staff, answering questions and helping where needed.

And Continues…

Our second day working with patients was a bit busier than the first. We knew that word of mouth would have spread overnight, so we enlisted the help of the night guard to record the names of the first 50 patients arriving to get in our queue. So when our daladala arrived, our patients were waiting—all 50 plus a few hopeful extras.

Our procedures worked well and facilitated our work so all patients were seen as promised. This is a huge improvement over past years when it was mid afternoon before we finally made the decision on the # of remaining patients who could be seen, turning away many many people who had waited all day hoping to make it into our queue.

Doug and Tall Chris will be very busy with surgery starting tomorrow. We have 4 procedures scheduled for each day, so our schedule will likely be completely full by the end of our day tomorrow.