Today was my fourth day volunteering at the Arusha Women’s Health Clinic in Arusha, Tanzania, and I already feel as though the hospital staff is my family.
After observing the twice daily medical rounds (essentially brief checkups on all ill patients and those in labour) as performed by Dr. Wanjara and his staff, Mama Tiaso (another of the lead doctors) informed me that I was to meet with Dr. Wanjara. I had requested to meet with him earlier so as to see how I, a pre-medical student from America, could help the Health Clinic with the materials that I have. He advised me of the hospital’s current stance. The Arusha Women’s Health Clinic is an up-and-coming, small yet sufficient hospital that desperately requires medical materials and monetary donations more-so than anything else. As I have been observing, the staff is quite well trained (all though I am still bitter over their lack of adequate sanitary techniques) and productive in the tasks they carry out. However, their abilities are limited due to lack of equipment such as ultrasound machines (the Clinic only has one), X-ray machines (the clinic has none), accurate scales, stethoscopes, and 21st century sphygmomanometers so as to correctly determine whether a patient has hypertension, which seems to be rather common amongst patients whose blood pressures I have measured.
I would love to assist but I am limited by my age, ability, and skills. I hope to contact hospitals in America that would be willing to donate some of their supplies, which often go to waste or are untouched, to the Arusha Women’s Health Clinic. At the very least, I would like to advise certain hospitals within the US of the impoverished situations of Clinics abroad. I have truly come to learn that knowledge is one of the strongest means to power and change.
After my meeting I had my daily chai-and-swahili-donut break wherein I discussed with the other medical volunteers the Clinic’s current situation. I am hoping that group action will be the most effective in terms of helping the hospital, which has given so much to us and taught us how to work from not just our minds but our hearts.
Scheduled for later that day were a hernia operation and a uterinal fibroid removal. This particular hernia was abdomen-based (as the patient was experiencing severe pains in the area) due to a weakness in the abdominal wall that essentially grew into a hole from which the organs within the abdomen began to protrude. Whereas in the US, such a hernia would have been operated on laparaoscopically, utilizing a camera, such means to treatment are not available here in Arusha and the hernia was thus surgically repaired in the more primitive way of manners. Nevertheless, the surgery, which was seemingly successful, was riveting to observe. The uterinal fibroid removal I did not have time to see at all; however, I was informed that the swelling of this female patient’s uterus necessitated such an operation resulting in the removal of her fibroid so as to prevent any possibility of cancer or infection. The operation wherein the fibroid is removed is called a myomectomy and often increases the chance of pregnancy for a woman.
Before leaving the hospital, Mama Tiaso told me that tomorrow, Thursday, we would instead visit an orphanage and only attend work for a couple hours in the morning. I am excited to journey to a typical Tanzanian orphanage and play with the kids — I have a plethora of coloured pencils, stickers, and chocolates to give them!