| Kiri 的个人资料kiripwc照片日志 |  工具  帮助 |
|
2月2日 Rockefeller Center inscription, New York City Jan 2006I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. John D Rockefeller Jnr.
10月25日 Paris & Provence, France Sept 2005Acknowledgements (photos): Miranda, Val and Aymeric
Truly a trip of a lifetime... 10月12日 Chinchpada Christian Hospital, India 2002-3Attention: * denotes photos which are particularly graphic.
(Photos have titles in the album but not in the blog.)
Introduction
Chinchpada Christian Hospital is a small 40 bed mission hospital in rural Maharashtra, India which was started by some Swedish Christian missionaries in the 1960s. They brought to this poor tribal region a healthcare service which otherwise would have had no access to any genuine medical attention whatsoever.
I had the privilege of visiting this hospital for a month around 2002-3 for my medical elective. I have great admiration for those who serve here, especially the doctors who have sacrificed so much to work simply for the love of God. They aim to emulate his example, believing that he sacrificed so much out of love for us (sending his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins so we could know him, cos we couldn't save ourselves).
The following are a couple of highlights from learning at CCH.
A. Child with witchdoctor sticker
Even though the hospital provides a charity service, often the tribal people wouldn't come until they were really desperate. First port of call would usually be the local witchdoctor, who would give all sorts of bizarre remedies - reciting chants, sticking "magic" stickers on the body, and even scorching people with hot rods. It was horrendous and tragic to see such superstition and ignorance costing lives.
B. Theatre/ Sterilizing room
So much we take for granted in the Australia. Single use items don't exist. Everything from gloves and masks to needles to equipment would be reused until destroyed. I distinctly remember the night i assisted in an appendicectomy and halfway through the lights all went out (power failure) and it took a good while before the "emergency" lighting came on... And when i saw the little bugs being attracted to the light and where it was focussed i got pretty distracted and wondered how to best deal with the little creatures coming near the open wound. So much for sterile... (Theatre is fully furnished with nonsterile flyswatter!)
I also remember the way they would begin every operation with prayer. The success of their operations and few complications we saw in spite of some of the complicated stuff that came in was such a miracle and blessing. Amazing how much could be done with little.
I loved the sterilizing room, the busy hum of the steam machine puffing away, the little masks, caps, shoe covers neatly lined up like home laundry.
C. *Labial cyst (approx 10x15cm)
Yeah this is pretty gross. Even for me! haha
A 50yo woman turned up with a problem she'd been having for >5yrs. A lump attached to her genitalia by a thin string of body tissue had been gradually growing in size. I honestly can't imagine how she managed with this enlarging mass in the most inconvenient of positions. But she really just waited til she physically couldn't bear it anymore. All it needed was a simple sterile clamp, cut and tie.
Obviously a lot of people came in with late stage diseases because their priority is to stay in the fields and work, not to take time to see a dr. Thankfully in this case it was pretty benign, just hugely discomforting, one would imagine, but sadly there were others whose lives were curtailed cos they didn't come in earlier to have malignant tumors removed.
D. *Complicated axillary abscess
32yo woman presented with a massive blood clot under her armpit after she suffered domestic violence. Unfortunately this blood clot became infected and needed to be drained and then dressed. She returned 1 week later to outpatients complaining of chest tingling. The drs were like, chest tingling?? What could that be? When the dressing was removed, 50+ maggots were found wriggling in the live blood/flesh. The nursing staff had the awful job of manually picking them out one by one and chucking them into a a kidney dish. The wound was washed out and redressed.
It appeared that the lady did not like the dressings and preferred to leave her wound to air, exposed to some egg-laying fly.
(If you look closely at the photo you can see a maggot on the skin near the wound.)
E. *Knee out of jeep / Skin graft / Skin graft 2 - equipment
Lesson: Don't leave body parts hanging out of doorless indian jeeps!
Skin was grafted with simple equipment and took nicely to the part.
F. Presents
AUD$10 000 worth of suture materials (brand new! not the old expired stuff that the hospitals would give us!) were donated to us to bring to CCH by a non-charity company. Total miracle! Thank God!
G. *Scrotal stitching
Kid playing on street fell (presumably naked) which caused a 5cm gash of his scrotum. *light bulb* YEAH, let's get the medical student to fix it! My first ever scrotal suturing job, and first time i used cotton sutures (what the hospital generally used for simple suturing as these were cheap). Kid was writhing around with the ketamine sedation. I incurred a greater expense to the hospital using 2 lots of ketamine cos i took longer than someone else who would've been more experienced. Parents brought kid back within 2 days cos the sutures had fell apart and the wound gaped open again!! Ummm i hope my suturing skills have improved since then!!! hehe ;)
H. *Stab wound
A guy working in the field at night ran to the assistance of a nearby hotel guard when he saw he was being attacked by some robbers. He got stabbed and his guts spilled out. Cos he was stable, his guts were dressed and he was fixed up in the morning. Thankfully uncomplicated and speedy recovery.
J. Bathroom
Hehe! My luxurious bathroom. No hot water. Unpredictable cold water and electricity supply. Nice cold concrete and simple bucket. Zappy water heating device could be used to heat up water in bucket when/ if electricity available (plus when / if water was obtained first). Just don't touch the water while it's on.
K. 24-hour bag and mask
Being out in rural india, some 4 hours via train followed by 3 hours via jeep from Mumbai, motor vehicle accidents occurred not infrequently. Those who needed assistance with breathing required intubation and 24-hour manual bagging and masking.
L. *Buttock biopsy
Just an example of the botched handiwork that would reach our doors. A woman had a problem with an enlarging buttock. She attended a neighboring "hospital" where they performed a very deep buttock biopsy. When they realized that whatever it was inside wouldn't stop bleeding they sent her over to Chinchpada.
M. Village / Outpatients
Village - this is on the odd occasion they sent out a dr to the even more remote village. We were completely swamped the until dusk.
Outpatients - no privacy. Everyone came around - the patient, family, friend, strangers! - to peer in and have a gawk and eavesdrop. Especially with those weird looking foreigners around!
N. Strangulated bowel
Death of bowel due to a "sigmoid volvulus" (a twisting off of the bowel such that it expands with gas and the blood supply cut off, and the bowel dies - an emergency operation is required). This is supposedly more common in india due to the "bulky" fibre rich diet.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
