1. Life at the Clinic

    December 28, 2009

    In a remote health facility like the Duk Lost Boys Clinic, many of the conditions here are rarely seen in the Western world. As Dr. David Reed, one of the John Dau Foundation’s medical advisors, put it, “diseases that are routine here are ones we only read about in the textbooks during medical school.” Things like diarrhea or fevers can easily turn life-threatening in this environment. Daily problems like 100+ degree heat and heavy flooding, lack of transport, and access to clean water make for an even greater challenge.

    In the face of this, some of the stories that come out of here are amazing, though they often happen quietly and routinely.

    A few nights ago a mother came in with her baby boy, about 8 months old. The child was severely dehydrated and was suffering from pneumonia and intestinal worms. He was unable to breastfeed or eat, and the worms had been robbing him of what nutritients he was getting. He had been vomiting and had diarrhea for the past week. His mother had walked more than 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) to the clinic, carrying her child in a hand-woven basket on her head.

    One of the clinic’s nurses and Clinical Officers attended to the child that night, setting up an IV drip to replenish the child’s fluids. The staff administered antibiotics for the pneumonia and medicine to treat helminthes (intestinal worms), as well as Vitamin A, and counseled the mother on feeding. The mother was given Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), which contain mostly sugars, salts, and potassium and the staff spent several minutes explaining the proper way to mix the solution with water, the need to boil and cool the water first to purify it, and how much to give over the next 48 hours. These supplies and this treatment aren’t available anywhere else for more than 100 miles. The staff asked her to stay in the nearby village that night so she could return soon for a follow up. As she and a friend left that night, the child was more responsive and had fallen asleep.

    The mother returned this afternoon, with what was a totally changed baby—at first the staff didn’t even realize it was the same child. After being so close to death a few days ago, here he was sitting up, his eyes open and alert, no longer sunken as they are when a child is several dehydrated. He was clean, breathing easier, and moving about. The staff removed the cannuler in his hand, which had been used to administer the IV fluids, and provided his mother with several more ORS packets. The child was breastfeeding and acting as any healthy 8-month would, even crying normally.

    His mother thanked the staff, prepared the basket, and left the Clinic for her home. An outreach team from the Duk Lost Boys Clinic will reach her village in the next months with life-saving vaccines and de-worming medicine. The DLBC will also be helping train the staff at the small health facility that is being constructed there in the spring by the John Dau Foundation’s partner, International Relief & Development. There are also three Traditional Birth Attendants from her area who were trained by the DLBC this past month who will be able to assist in her next birth.

    All these services provided quietly, diligently, in a place where most people could never have dreamed of such care.

    John Dau is visiting Duk this month. While sitting outside the Clinic one afternoon, I asked if he could have ever imagined this when he was a boy in this village. “No way,” he said.

Archive