March 5th was day 2 of St. Monica's Medical Clinic in Atiak. We added to our Atiak medical team two wonderful ladies this week, Catherine who works in the Gulu Clinic during the week, and Staci, my fellow Pros for Africa colleague and friend. As we approached St. Monica's in Atiak, we were greeted by at least thirty patients already waiting…last week, we had 30 patients total! Throughout the duration of the nine hour day, we treated 128 patients…four times the impact of day one. All of the new patients were recruited by word of mouth of the first day's patients. This reflects clearly the desperate need of medical care in this area.
Because of the great number of patients, we had to manage the flow more strategically. Therefore, I volunteered to put my little bit of Acholi to the test and greet the patients and collect their basic demographic information such as: Name, Age, Gender, Village, and Weight. The names here are quite a challenge for me to grasp on the first try but by the end of the day I was getting much better at understanding their accent. Fortunately, I had learned numbers in my Acholi lesson last week, which served me well. Every time I correctly interpreted their age on the first attempt they would be pretty shocked, but we definitely shared plenty of laughs at my expense when it came to my language skills. Regardless, I felt privileged to communicate with them in their native tongue as much as I could. Great practice.
When I wasn't collecting the patients' information I was assisting Sister Immaculate and Staci with the dispensing of medicine. This was a challenge as well given that I have had no previous experience as a pharmacist. The pharmaceutical terminology and drug names were so foreign to us. For instance, 8` means every 8 hours, which translates to 3 times a day when multiplying to count out the proper number of pills to dispense ; 5/7 means 5 days; 2/52 means two weeks; so on and so forth. It is more complicated that I originally thought. Staci and I struggled through the first couple of hours but by the end we were "pros," at least in our minds :)
The vast majority of patients were women, which given my passion for women's health, made my heart quite happy. I'm eager to see the turnout next Saturday. I pray we are able to treat them all and that our wonderful doctors are well and as energized as they were this day. We are truly blessed with an outstanding medical team. Everyone understands the necessity of their work and eagerly and happily devotes themselves wholly to their patients all day long. I have yet to experience something as rewarding as using the passion and skills God has given me to reach out to people who really need the care and love. So grateful for the opportunity!
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