November 28, 2015
by Pat Rees
Today is an example of the huge difference in my current world of Bongolo Hospital in Gabon and the medical care in America.
Fenton, who has been back in the USA for about a month now, started having sudden "flu symptoms" earlier this week. He thought he got better, but last night started feeling worse, and emailed me with his symptoms. If he were HERE---I would send him for a malaria smear, have the results back and him on the appropriate medication in about an hour. I can totally trust the lab techs here to do a fast and accurate malaria study. He is NOT here, so after a couple of phone calls to the regular doctor, then a trip to the ER, with more lab tests done on him at one time than I have done on patients this whole time in Africa (ok, that is a slight exaggeration), and over 4 hours in the ER, they still aren't sure if the malaria smear is correct. It has to be looked at a second time and then by the pathologist, who won't be in until Monday. I am so thankful that I did get to talk with the ER doctor (who I know from when I was working in Everett--thank you Lilly Ann for use of your phone!). I think that Fenton is going to start taking the malaria medicine that I had at home (a "Just in Case" prescription from a previous Africa trip). The ER doctor says Fenton looks OK and for that I am VERY thankful. I am trying not to think of how much all of the work up he had, especially in comparison to what we have done here today.
While in Bongolo, we had an emergency C-section, followed by a 3 day old baby who had dead bowel, and then a man who tramatically amputated a toe in a machine accident. Add to that 9 patients in REA (our recovery room-ICU area)--patients with chest tubes, nose tubes, external orthopedic traction devices--plus the routine rounds on post-operative patients. If I had these same patients in the USA the C-section patient wouldn't have had pain all night with non-progressive labor, for she would have had an epidural. The baby would have not come into the hospital from someplace else at 3 days of age, and bowel already dead. The baby would have had advanced care. He might have lived. Here, he didn't survive. The toe amputation might have attempted to be re-attached in the USA, but in Bongolo, if you have a toe in a plastic bag for 4 hours before you come to the hospital, you get your amputation cleaned up and "fixed".
I am a world apart from my husband who probably is suffering from a "this world" illness. Something we could take care of here is so hard back in Everett. In Everett, the things I saw today would have been so much easier to take care of. There would have been so much less pain, many fewer tears, and less long-term difficulty. Worlds apart, but all loved by the same God. I know that the patients here all felt that God-loving touch from the staff. I know that the care they received was the best they could have been given here in this part of the world. I am so thankful for the advanced level of health care my husband has been given. I am thankful for Bongolo Hospital and the level of care, both medical and spiritual, that each of our patients were given today.