On Deck 7

Every day, at 2:30, the patients come outside for some fresh air on deck 7.  The hospital is on deck 2.   Imagine, especially if you are from a rural village, what it would be like to be in a hospital ward on a ship.  With no windows!

They stay on deck 7 for about an hour, playing games and just hanging out.

This is right outside our cabin.  In fact, those are probably our windows in this picture.  If I have the day off, I sometimes go out and watch the beanbag toss.  Lately, I've been playing Uno with some of the patients. It's a good game to play when you don't understand each other's language!

Debbie

Ponseti Celebration

We were able to attend a celebration recognizing the Mercy ship program that treats children with club feet. The "Ponseti" method is the gold standard for treating club feet.  It consist of very minor surgery under local anaesthetic in which the Achilles tendon if cut so the foot can be positioned at a right angle to the leg. It is held in place by plaster casting while the tendon reattached itself. Later the child wears shoes connected with a brace.  The whole treatment takes years, so it is crucial that local doctors can continue this treatment after the ship leaves the country.
This is a great example of the medical capacity building that takes place when the Mercy ship comes to a country.

We learned about the treatment and heard testimonies from parents about their children. As always there was lots of music and dancing.

 Nick Veltjens trains local practitioners in club foot treatment.

Our friend Kalinda was demonstrating treatment techniques.  Treatment can take up to six years using braces.

In most of Cameroon, people don't know that club foot can be treated and children can grow up to live normal lives.  Now more children have real hope for the future.

Chuck

Blind school

The blind school and the deaf school are private schools in Douala that each have a special class.  In this school, it's a small class for blind students.  Lere and his team do a wonderful job with these kids.  Lere asks for volunteers to lead a song.  They come up one at a time, and Lere accompanies them on his guitar.  Notice in the picture that there is a child looking in the classroom from outside.  Sometimes there is a crowd outside the window!

The story was about God leading the Israelites with the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire.  These kids are good listeners.  Lere introduces us with our name and the country we are from.  And the kids will remember and be able to tell him our country when we come back.  We don't make a craft, but give them one already made to help them remember and tell the story.  We help them feel the craft.  I wish my French was better, but they seemed to understand.

Lere, Maurice and Thomas come every week to this class and bring volunteers from the ship with them.  They  know this small class very well!

Debbie

Routine, but not normal

We've been here for over three months now, and we have our routines.  For me, I usually go to the Hope Center once week to visit recovering patients.  On the way there in the van we are usually very chatty.  It's always a great group of people, and there are always new people to meet.

On the way back to the ship, it's quiet in the van.  We're all rather subdued.  For me, it's just a bit overwhelming.  We've just seen the patients, and we're all just looking out the windows at the streets of Douala.  We see cattle grazing out of dumpsters, crazy traffic, poverty.

I was also at a dress ceremony this week for the women who have had surgery for childbirth injuries. They receive a  beautiful new dress to represent a new start in a healed life.  I heard testimonies from women praising God for their healing.  These women have suffered, some  for eight, ten or fifteen years.  They have suffered from a condition that is non existent in our country, because everyone in our country has access to safe surgery.
It's not fair or just, is it?

My latest favorite author, N T Wright says, " Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleness of the present world... That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God's new world, which he has thrown open to us."
We are called to bring God's kingdom to this world.
And that brings joy.

Debbie

A Day in Hospital Supply

One day I started a conversation with one of the Mercy Ships photographers as I was making some deliveries to the various hospital wards.  He started taking my picture as I went about my routine.  Apparently one turned out that he was willing to post and here it is. I was caught in the act of working.

All of the crew are volunteers and work full time. My hours are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM with an hour lunch and rotating call for evenings and weekends.  Not a bad schedule.

We start each day with a group meeting so we are all caught up on the issues and priorities of the day, we divide up responsibilities and then pray before we start our work.
The priorities are the operating rooms and the wards.  We have some computerized storage cabinets but many are manual storage cabinets and shelves which we visually check each work day and restock as needed. This is usually finished in the mornings.  After that we handle other orders and other special requests.

One of the big challenges this year is implementing a new inventory software system.  There are always start up issues whenever an organization changes to a new system, and we have done a lot of problem solving and adjustments in the couple months I have been here. We are getting better at how to use this system more efficiently.

In addition to the Wards we get special orders from several other medical departments.  We also have to move and rotate supplies, restock our central area, and do cycle counts.  Because we get our supplies shipped from the USA or from The Netherlands, we never know when the next one will arrive.  We can be pretty sure they will be late.  It's never easy to get a container into an African port and get through customs.  When there are shortages we also get resupplied by people traveling to the ship as they bring an extra duffle bag packed full of medical supplies.

We recently finished our eye surgery. We were proud to say that we never had to cancel one surgery due to a supply shortage. As a result over 1500 Cameroonians who were blind can now see. 

Chuck

Small miracles

I was at the pool this afternoon, talking with two nurses and a pharmacist about two of our smallest patients.  One was a five year old with pneumonia, and the other was a baby with RSV.  Both of these children ended up on the ship at exactly the right time.

The oxygen and supplies showed up on the ship two days before anyone knew that they would be needed.  Because of the lack of medical care in their communities, neither child would have survived. Both are now doing well!   The baby with RSV will go home for a month to get stronger before she is admitted for her surgery.

We don't always understand God's miracles.There is a baby at the Hope Center who will not have surgery for her large facial tumor, because she would not survive the surgery.  They are treating her by trying to cut off the blood supply to the tumor.  The young mom is reassured that she is a good mother, doing all she can for her child.

Debbie