Flying Medical Service!!

Early Monday morning Christine and I had a sudden change of plans when we received a phone call from the flying medical service! The volunteers that they had scheduled to staff clinics for their 3 day mission to the bush didn’t show up and they were hoping we would be able to join them last minute. We quickly packed overnight bags, grabbed our stethoscopes and medical books, and took a cab to the Arusha airport. There we met Ezra, a young pilot from Pennsylvania that has been in Tanzania for 4 years. He was loading up a small, 6-seater Cessna with suitcases of medicine, a metal table, and some camping stools. We boarded the plane and took off for the small village of Emborate about 30 minutes South of Arusha.

A Masaai boma from the airplane. Their huts surround a center circle where they keep their livestock overnight.

Before landing in Emborate we had to buzz the dirt runway to scare off the herd of goats grazing there. The village of Emborate has a population of about 2,000 and their Catholic mission served as our home base. We dropped off our overnight bags and picked up Barnabus, a clinical officer from Tanzania that looked to be about 12 years old (yay Doogie Hauser). We hopped back in the plane and headed to our first clinic.

The flying medical service has almost 30 bush clinics that are visited about every 2-4 weeks. In order for villages to get a clinic they must build and maintain a dirt runway and a mud or stick hut that we can see patients in. If they fail to do this then the medical teams stop coming to their clinic until they fix their “facilities.”

A 2 room mud clinic

A stick clinic with some waiting patients

Looking out of the "window" of the clinic on some waiting patients

Seeing patients

Our main goals at each clinic were to weigh and vaccinate children, do prenatal exams on all the pregnant women, and see all the patients with acute medical problems like coughs, fevers, abdominal pain, rashes, etc. Our first clinic was a two room mud hut in the middle of nowhere! I started with prenatal exams and saw over 20 women. It took almost 4 hours for us to see everyone and then we had a lunch of bread, jam, and warm sodas under the wing of the airplane. We headed to our second clinic and did much of the same work. I helped Barnabus see patients and dispense antibiotics, antimalarials, antiworms, vitamins, and a variety of other medications. After another 3+ tiring hours we finished and left for our final clinic of the day. When we arrived only 4 men were there and they informed us that a herd of elephants had just run through the area and scared all of our patients away! Only in Africa!!

We returned to Emborate and had a nice dinner of rice, beans, cabbage, and fruit with the town priest Joseph who is from Brazil. We were exhausted and went to bed in the simple guesthouse shortly after dinner.

On Tuesday we woke up around 7am, took freezing showers, and had breakfast with Joseph and Ezra. We only had one clinic to do, so there was time to explore the village before boarding the plane around 10:30. Clinic was very similar to the previous day except that when we arrived there was a goat tied up inside the hut! Christine and I had a good laugh and I asked Ezra if my pregnant ladies should just lay by the goat for their exams. Ezra informed me that this goat was a gift for another pilot and would be coming back to Arusha with us! Once again…only in Africa! After a long clinic we had a lunch of bread and sardines. We gave our cokes to some of the tribe elders and they were thrilled! We tied up the goat (aka Gerald) and put him under the plane and returned to Emborate. Gerald was put in the chicken coop for the night, so that he wouldn’t get eaten by hyenas! We helped Joseph make dinner and got to eat delicious, illegal Impala! Impala are like antelopes, but cannot be hunted for food. Tourists, however, hunt them for trophies and then the local guides give the leftover meat to Joseph because he is a trustworthy priest! After dinner we drank beer, played cards, and sang songs before bed.

Gerald the goat inside clinic!!

An adorable family!

Wednesday we had two more clinics and they were both very busy. At the first clinic I did more prenatal visits and at the second clinic I weighed and vaccinated 32 children! To weigh the children we hang a scale from a tree branch or a rafter of the clinic hut. Moms then put their babies in cloth bags and we hang the bags on the scale. The kids slump awkwardly in the bags and inevitably start screaming and the mothers are always hesitant to let go completely. It is quite a hilarious process! After clinics we returned to Emborate to drop off Barnabus and say our goodbyes. We flew back to Arusha and were able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro from the air. It was incredible! Outreach clinic is an exhausting, but rewarding experience and I’m sure we’ll have the chance to go again!

Vaccinations!

Weighing babies from a tree