OUTREACH -- JULY 14

We had another great outreach yesterday. Nearly 200 patients. We had set up at the base of a mountain so that we would be more central and more tribes would be able to come seek help, but we ended up be swamped by the people from the nearest town. Many of them already had regular doctors and could afford their own medication. That was really frustrationg because it prevented us from seeing some of the people who really needed the help. We did our best, but we couldn't stay their all night. It got so crazy in the afternoon that Narelle and I were seeing patients without the supervision of any doctor. Aaaah! For the most part it went well, but there were quite a few problems that no one could do anything about. One women wanted medication to make her voice come back, she had lost it over 20 years ago. Another wanted sleeping pills but we don't give out anything that can become addictive.
We met another motherless family. This father was taking care of 6 children all under the age of 11. The grandmother tried to help but she was very ill. All the children had asthma. I patched up a 6yr old girl who had a nasty blister on her finger. It had popped and needed to be cleaned and bandaged. The poor little thing didn't shed a tear but was shaking when I put on hydrogen peroxide. It must have hurt so bad. We saw a 21yr old man who had had a stroke less than a year ago. He had the medications his mother could afford, but they were hoping we would have something that would bring back the function to his right side. He is pretty much destined for poverty because finding a job will be very difficult for him. The fun really started on the way home when the tire that was just repaired after last week had a bulge on it. We had no choice but to drive home in it, it was pretty dodgy driving through the rough terrain. Here we are all piled on the right side to relieve some of the pressure on the left tire...

The tire ended up blowing. It was the loudest sound ever. Some girls thought we were being shot at. It was pretty funny. It didn't blow until about five minutes away from where we live so it worked out quite well.
Here is the flat tire....

Here we are walking home...

After that we went to the local version of MacDonalds, called Jolly-Bee for icecream.

So I just sat here for 30 minutes and the pics didn't load so maybe next time.