Blogs from Lusaka, Zambia, Africa - page 14

The last day of training (and getting caught up on entries, the text part at least!) Today was the last day of training, and rather than the primarily didactic form of the last couple days, today was our first day to enroll new patients under the supervision of Paul and Winnie. We started off in the MCH clinic at Bwafwano, Wednesday being our usual malnourishment day. However, unlike previous days in the malnourishment clinic, today the kids actually got something for treatment! In all, we enrolled 4 kids to receive RUTF this first morning, most of whom were patients who had been coming every week even when there wasn't food. There were also several others who were borderline for the criteria, who we will be following closely to see if they dip into the danger zone. ... read more

I'm now a few days behind on my entries, but I want to at least get some text down now so that I can just upload media later when I have some time. Today (backdating to Monday) the trainings for the RUTF program got underway. This was the slightly lighter day, in that we weren't training people with any clinical knowledge, but also the more important one, because the home-based-care workers will be the ones finding the children in need and spreading the word about the program. We managed to get good representation from all of the outpost sites in addition to a good turnout for Bwafwano itself. The workers were trained in the basics of the screening process, including the technique for taking Measured Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) and checking for pedal edema, two of ... read more

Yesterday went a little long, but was a successful day nonetheless. It got started with a phone call telling us that Daisy, Kafula's wife, was at UTH in labor. We resolved to go by before the day was over. We spent the morning at Bwafwano, taking care of some of the initial preparations for the RUTF trainings that will run from Monday to Wednesday. In other words, we bought a ton of food, checked lists, found out what necessary supplies we'd need, etc. Not a huge amount to say about that, just getting stuff done. Next on the agenda was to find this physician in town that Phil Sidenberg recommended we meet, a guy who ran a semi-private TB and HIV clinic out of his office in addition to his regular practice. I got there via ... read more

It was a tough day at the clinic today. Wednesday is the usual day for the malnutrition clinic at Bwafwano (which has miraculously continued to have some attendance in spite of not having food), so the MCH clinic had a decent turnout-- about 17 kids came in to be seen, several of which will be started on the feeding program once we get everyone trained next week. There was a big interruption toward the end of clinic, when Mr. Chello came looking for Rebecca and me. A child that was seen by him yesterday for diarrhea and dehydration was brought back again by her mother, looking somewhat more sick than yesterday. She was given ORS (Oral Rehydration Solution), and the girl was apparently still sitting in the waiting room when the mother noticed she was no ... read more

This morning we went to UTH to visit the little girl (her name is Anna, by the way) we sent there on my first day at Bwafwano. She has gained a little weight, and thankfully she is taking fluids and formula by mouth and hasn't suffered any obvious complications from her malnourishment. I think this case is a perfect example of why it would be great to get the malnutrition program running at Bwafwano, because we probably could have managed this girl sooner as an outpatient. There really was no need for her to get this sick, or to require a hospital stay, but without a reliable source of food coming through the clinic we didn't really have much choice. Becca and I bought food for the neighbor, who is staying with Anna, because the hospital ... read more