The day of the walkies & latex glove chicken

Second Day - Mbahe

When we arrived...patients!

Second day on the job.When we arrived, there were approximately 200 people waiting for us inside the church. For only our second day we were a bit overwhelmed by the number that greeted us.

The courtyard

We were told that we could set up triage inside the church and the rest of the stations in a nearby building with a central, open air patch of grass. There was a bit of confusion and frustration because one part of triage went ahead and set up near the stations and another section set up inside the church.



After a bit of discussing back and forth, the church was agreed upon despite the distance between it and the stations.

We had packed a set of walkie talkies at the last minute and these sure came in handy today. We were able to use them to control the flow of patients. I think that some of the  locals had never seen walkies before although they all are exposed to cell phones. It is very strange to see people living in poverty (at least from a western perspective) but then reach into their pockets to pull out a ringing cell phone.

Rick escorting some patients

The latex glove chicken makes it's first appearance

After a very busy day (in which we didn't turn anyone away) we headed back to Kilema. After unpacking the buses, we were taken on a tour of the hospital wards and operating theatre. One side of the main building is for men, the other for women.  They are further separated by age (e.g., old men in one ward, young men in another), post surgery,  and a "traction room"–everyone in the room was in traction. The maternity ward and HIV patients were in other buildings.


If felt kind of invasive for all of us to crowd into each room as the doctor gave a brief history of select patients and described some of the hospital processes. There were a couple of patients with mental illness who had been at the hospital for a while and a man suffering with Tetanus.

Total patients seen: 454
HIV Positive:0