The highs are high

The last three days have been jam packed with orientation to the ship, wards and way of life here on the ship. It has been exciting , eye opening, exhausting, and rewarding.

I arrived to the ship a couple days after my planned arrival due to travel issues.   Karyn did not have the same issues I did and made it to Pointe Noire as planned, safe and sound.   I had two days to try to get used to the ship a bit, and then we had the BIG screening day. A screening day is how patients are selected for surgery. The public is invited to come with what ails them and see if they are candidates for surgery.  There is one big screening day in the beginning, and then many more small ones throughout the stay in each country.  Over 7,000 people arrived in line and over 4,000 of them were patients.

The crew left in a few different waves from the ship, 8 people/land rover. My car left at 0630, shortly after sunrise. The large convoy of white mercy ship trucks full of many (not all) white faces was quite the sight to see through town as many were walking the streets to work. The screening was held in a high school that was still in summer break. It was near the ship 10-20 minutes away. It was a huge compound like school with a sand yard. To prepare the school, each classroom had to be emptied of the many wooden benches. And set up for screening. It took many hands and lots of work to pull of the preparation.  

Here in Pointe Noire there is a strong media presence, also in Brazzaville, which is a 4 hour drive (I think…). There were over 18 different media groups here to cover the event. Due to this strength, the word got out into the community and the people came.  And, came. There were so many, that the line had to keep winding up and down different streets, and as more people came, more streets were taken over by the line.

I worked in an early part of screening where I took a brief health history, a blood pressure and a heart rate.  It asked questions about heart health, breathing status, epilepsy, malaria, diet/weight, and HIV.  I worked with an amazing ‘day worker,’ Bridge, who interpreted for me. Many day workers are hired to help us on ship. They are local people who know the local culture and speak both English and the local languages. We could not do with out them.  Bridge told me he knew nothing of medicine, and that this was all new. I started a tally of how many people Bridge and I saw, and quickly lost count. There were about 10-12 groups of nurses and day workers in my room which was about the size, maybe a little smaller, of a small US classroom. We all sat in plastic lawn chairs in groups of at least 3, a patient and their family, the day worker and the nurse. The room was crowded! People kept coming and coming.  I saw all kinds of health issues, many goiters, some people who had scars/contractures from burns, cleft lips/pallets (children and adults), ortho issues, and facial tumors,  to name some. Some people had to be carried in. I had one young girl, about 8 years old, with clubbed feet who was carried on her mother’s back. Her mom has most likely been doing this since her birth. Everywhere she goes. When she and her mother sat down, she was very apprehensive and fearful. The probability of her being addressed by people other than her family is very low.  Here, when people are disfigured, the community ignores them and casts them away. A big part of our job is to show compassion, to demonstrate their worth through communication, touch and eye contact. This compassion is transformative. When I interacted with her to take my assessment, her face lit up and she gave me the biggest smile.

It was a long hard day, I only got to experience this small piece of the very large operation. In other rooms, surgeons were assessing patients for surgery, patients were praying and being prayed for, and patients were given a scheduled surgery day, which is the most exciting part.  For many, a surgery to fix minor problems will put a whole new perspective on their life.  Not only was this the most exciting part, it was also the most devastating part. There is a phenomenon in medicine where the “highs are high, and the lows are low.”  This is true here.  Not every person we saw is a candidate for surgery. Many were denied.  We do not have the resources to fix all that happens here in Africa.  The sweet girl on her mother’s back was most likely denied, clubbed feet is an issue the AFM will not operate on this field service.

As I continue to process this complex day, I will wrestle with the injustices of the world.  I will try to 

understand, or rather, accept that I may never understand the finitude of life. And how, I can live in a world that has so much pain and suffering.

I cannot get lost in this. I must take hope and be thankful for the difference that can be made.  The healing is not only a physical journey, but an emotional/spiritual/psychological one. A journey in which people can find their worth even in a world filled with cruelty. I hope that those who were turned away from surgery do not feel turned away from the forms of healing, aside from the physical. I can also take hope in the transformation that will happen from the surgeries we are able to do. I am so excited for Monday, when this will become tangible.

~Photos all taken by Mercy Ships Communications on screening day.~