Blog
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December 15, 2011
This is an e-mail message from Dr. Barb Connor, who volunteers as the John Dau Foundation’s Medical Director. She is in South Sudan for a week to help train staff and to oversee an eye surgery campaign by a team of world-renowned eye surgeons from the U.S.
Just a quick update about the progress of our mission so far:
So we have arrived safely in Duk, South Sudan. And it is so great to be here at the same time as John Dau in Duk.
Today we screened 81 patients for eye surgery, and 74 patients will definitely have surgery. We hope to screen as many or more tomorrow, and those numbers will be added to the ones that have already been screened. So we will have plenty of patients for the doctors to operate on. Aguer, the ophthalmic assistant, was working with us and the word from medical team is that he has done an excellent job.
We hope to begin the first eye surgeries tomorrow for trachoma (the disease that causes blindness by turning the eyelashed inward such that they scratch the surface of the eye) . These first surgeries will be done by Dr. Lloyd Campbell who came in with us on the first plane load, December 12.
We even found a slit lamp here (an eye microscope) and volunteers Billy Reed and Marshall McCarroll got it working, which helped a lot with exams.
We had one case today where a young girl led her blind grandmother to the clinic, and they walked 8 hours to get here!
Drs Tabin and Crandall arrive on Thursday Dec 15th and will begin surgery shortly after getting off the plane. They have just five days in Duk, and they will probably treat more than 100 people by the time they leave. Amazing—giving people the gift of sight, just like that.
Josh Gwinn, our new hire for project manager at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic, has been a quick study in his orientation to the Clinic. He has jumped right in and I think he’s going to be fantastic. Josh, Mike Wagner (the current Project Manager), John Dau and I met this morning several hours for a de-briefing.
When we first arrived, a baby had just been born, and that was the second baby of the day, and then another was born during the night! So the maternity program is flourishing also.
There are a young antelope and a gazelle that now come around the clinic, that are quite tame, and they are beautiful so it really felt like I was in Africa this morning when I woke up with a gazelle outside my tent!
Those of you who have been here will be jealous to know that we have had fantastic food and so much more than the usual basic “mouth watering beans”. We have had some fresh fruit and cabbage and John Dau’s father donated a goat that we had today. So all in all it has been fantastic!
There’s still no toilet seat for Barb, but we do have a new latrine which is great!
I’m writing all of this to sounds of singing coming from the village. And last night the full moon was amazing. We almost didn’t need headlamps!
Duk is as beautiful as ever, the people are so appreciative, our staff is very hard-working and dedicated, and this visiting team are so awe-inspiring with their hard work and with what they will be offering to these people. I am honored and proud to be a part of this wonderful organization. Thank you all for all of your support.
December 13th, 9:22pm, Duk, South Sudan
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