First Day at Mazimbu

When our daladala pulled in to Mazimbu yesterday afternoon, our patient bench was empty, so our visit was only to accomplish our formal first meeting to greet our co-workers at Mazimbu and to unpack our medical supplies. But this morning, our first official day, began with patients awaiting our arrival, sitting patiently on our benches.

Much planning and discussion went in to our game plan before today.

But first, let us give you an outline of what our work at Mazimbu looks like—we work concurrently with the Mazimbu staff. The hospital is shaped like an inverted U, with the Mazimbu reception area on one side of the U and our reception on the opposite side of the U. Once our patients have been registered, they enter the U and meet with our nurses, who gather their history for the doctor. After they have met with the doctor, labs or pharmacy may be ordered. Mazimbu lab techs will pull the blood and run the tests. The meds may be filled by our pharmacy or, if it is not a med we brought, by the Mazimbu pharmacy. If an EKG or an Xray or an ultrasound is needed, it is performed by Mazimbu staff.

This year two of the Mazimbu doctors are working with Doug as team doctors because they each can help in different ways—

                Mazimbu’s Dr. Swai is a gynecologist so his focus with the team is women who need a surgical solution but cannot afford the cost.

                Doug’s focus is people who need a surgical solution, other than those who are within Dr. Swai’s scope.

    Mazimbu's Dr. Kivuma is a general practitioner who can help those who are not surgical candidates.

Ok, back to our game plan. Lines are a way of life here so Tanzanians are content to queue up and wait in line, all day if necessary, for their turn. The tricky part is taking a well ordered single queue and separating it into three queues—one for each of our three doctors. In this culture, this just cannot be done. Our translators are invaluable and without them we could not carry out our mission. But God has blessed us with three amazing men who are so much more than translators. Kishumu and Eliah are young Maasai men who are relatives of our very close friend, Tisho, and Epsilon is a brother to Gamma, who has also worked with us over the years and is now married to one of our two-time former team members. These men have helped us in the same manner that Tisho and Gamma have in past years—not just translating, but advising on ways we can say or do things better in this culture. With their help we were able to quietly and diplomatically triage the line in the order needed to allow the doctors to help all of our patients.