Taiama, Sierra Leone 2007!

We had a great trip to Sierra Leone this year! The majority of us were from the Jefferson area but we met up with Dr. Steve and his wife from Canada at the airport in Portland. After stops in Atlanta and London we ended up in the Kissytown airport. The only way to get out of the airport is via ferry so we spent our first hour or so on a crowded ferry sailing across the river to Freetown. Pretty exhausted from our travel we spent our first night in a hotel in Freetown, only to get up early the next morning and begin the next leg of our journey.   Sitting down for a quick lunch on the way to Taiama. For many of us this was our first introduction to "green glop."  It would become a very familiar meal over the next week! We spent six hours on a bus driving to Taiama, which is where we held the clinic. We unloaded the bus and set up the clinic which was in one of the churches in the town. It was a great setup and we love to be able to support the church in this way. After we finished setting up we loaded back onto the bus and headed to Bo which is a town about 45 min away. We typically try to stay in the same town as the clinic but because Taiama is a refugee camp there was no adequate housing for such a large group so we drove back and forth between towns each day.    One of our team members greeting patients, getting their vital signs, height, weight, and chief complaint in the waiting area. We also give everyone some worm medicine while their waiting.  Tasty huh? The next day we woke up early and had our first African breakfast. This consisted mostly of bread and jam with instant coffee. After breakfast we had our morning devotional led by Pastor Dee and then headed to clinic. I was a little nervous for the first day of clinic but like a rusty old clock, it slowly started running and we were in business!  Daramy, one of our fabulous interpreters investigating our eye chart.                       This clinic consisted of four providers. Dr. Steve and Dr. Irvine are two of our regulars and we also had three more RN’s. Two of them saw patients and one helped man the pharmacy. We are always so grateful for the nonmedical people as their roles are so important! They help by assisting the providers, and running the admission area and pharmacy. We also had someone giving out eyeglasses, giving out Bibles, and praying with people as they waited for their medicines.              After four days of clinic it was time to pack up and head home. We spent a day shopping and seeing some sites. We went out to dinner with the whole team and some of the Africans who helped us as our security. That was a great night of just getting to relax and spend some fun time with each other after we’d worked very hard.   An interesting thing that happened while we were leaving was that after our plane took off we had to turn around and come back to Freetown due to plane malfunctions. We ended up being stranded at the airport for an extra 24 hours as they had to send for another plane from London to come and get us. We started to identify with our patients a little as we felt like refugees ourselves in this strange country, relying on others for our food and water and hoarding toilet paper when it was available!! J         There are several things that stick out in my mind as I think back to this trip. One of the things I think I will always remember is when the two other nurses and I went out into the waiting throngs of people to try and triage. As soon as we went out there and they saw what we were doing, we were surrounded with everyone putting their ailments in front of us. My interpreter got lost in the crowd and I lost sight of the other two nurses as well. The need was extremely overwhelming as there was simply no way we would be able to see everyone. All of the sudden I had all this power in deciding who had ailments that we could treat and who would be seen. It was a very difficult position to be in!    There are several things that stick out in my mind as I think back to this trip. One of the things I think I will always remember is when the two other nurses and I went out into the waiting throngs of people to try and triage. As soon as we went out there and they saw what we were doing, we were surrounded with everyone putting their ailments in front of us. My interpreter got lost in the crowd and I lost sight of the other two nurses as well. The need was extremely overwhelming as there was simply no way we would be able to see everyone. All of the sudden I had all this power in deciding who had ailments that we could treat and who would be seen. It was a very difficult position to be in! One other thing that I’ve replayed over and over in my mind was something that happened the last day of clinic. We had to close the clinic at noon that day so we could pack everything up and get on the road before dark. Closing the doors of the clinic to the hundreds of people waiting outside was very difficult . There was no more “maybe you can be seen tomorrow” because there would be no more clinic tomorrow. The finality of it was hard. I was having a difficult time of it and so I went off to a corner to do a menial task and collect myself. As I was sitting there next to the door a woman shoved her baby in between the crack of the door and the wall, asking for us to see her. The clinic was closed. All the patients we could see were waiting in the admitting area already. But her baby was so sick. I went to one of the doctors and asked if we were really able to help the multitudes of sick babies that we’d seen, or if they were just too sick. He was very positive and said that he really thought we were able to help them. So I went back and opened the door and let this one more patient in. As we closed the door, the building started to shake as people pounded on the door to be able to come in too. I’ve questioned my decision countless times. Was it really fair to let that one person in? As it’s been pointed out to me, there were countless other babies exactly the same as this one waiting to be seen. We just couldn’t help everyone. But we could help this one.