Malnutrition is a BIG problem….

 For the many of the children here and in other developing countries.  This week we had a young boy, 11 months old who came in for an abdominal hernia.  The day he was due to be discharged, I went to check on him and found him to be malnourished.  He also has a twin sister, but she is much healthier.  Many times patients want to be discharged as quickly as possible as they cannot afford to pay for a long stay.  I spoke with the mother and a friend of hers about the concerns I had for the child.  His name is Benic.  I encouraged her to stay 4-5 more days to see if we could get his weight up.  A normal 11 month old should weigh around 19 pounds,  Benic weighed 12.5 pounds when I first saw him.  After 5 days of high calorie diet which included “Plumpy Nut”, which is protein high peanut butter, he weight 14.5 pounds.  He looked much better and so we let them go home.  He will follow-up with us at our malnutrition clinic next Thursday, May 3rd.  Let us all pray he continues to increase his weight.

(I am not good at taking pictures.  I feel it is intrusive.  I will try to do better,  it is just that I usually am talking and working and forget those photos.  I pray you will understand if I don’t have a picture of every patient I see.)

We are planning to break ground on the building of a new surgical center tomorrow.  We have had a generous donor provide the funding for this up-grade.  This surgical center will be bigger and hopefully, more sterile than what we currently have.  We will have pre-op and post-op rooms which we currently do not have.  I will take pictures as we work toward this new goal.  Oh my!  I was just informed they have broken ground today on the new surgery!  See picture below:

This shows how much bigger the area will be than what we currently have.

When I arrived here in 2013, one of the first things I did was to replace some of the mattresses at the hospital.  They were in terrible shape!  Well it has been 9 years since we replaced them and they are again in great need of replacing.  A couple of weeks ago, I asked the Matron (Head Nurse) if there was anything they really needed and she mentioned mattresses first thing.  I think I will use some of the work- funds you have kindly donated and purchase some mattresses in May.  I know I don’t have enough to replace them all, but if we do some every month, maybe we can replace them all buy the end of the year.

Wouldn’t you like to sleep on this or put your child on it?

There are many things which need to be improved here at the hospital.  How to document properly in the computer.  How to maintain good supply records and encourage better performance.  I am sure you hear this at your jobs to a certain degree.  I want to encourage the improved behavior without being negative all the time.  So many years ago, I had bulletin boards built in order to post some positive feedback.  I have just started this week and so hope to fill the board up soon with pictures of those who are striving to do better.

Sorry about some of the pictures.  A photographer I am not.  Thanks for your continued support and encouragement.  I appreciate you all and this work.

May God Bless us as we do this mission work!