I guess many of you would realize that it is easy to get discouraged in Niger - in particular the serious unrelenting poverty that makes folk turn up late to see you with their diseases - be it leprosy, TB, malaria, heart failure, broken bones and the many foot infections to name the more common conditions that we see here- often with diabetes associated. Yet- at the same time once you begin treating these conditions there often is an equally encouraging turn around that makes you want to keep coming back for more!
We have seen many folk healed from quite advanced diseases and of course those who are not are offered some form of the gospel depending on their interest. So there is always hope we can offer folk - even the incurable from a medical perspective. We also use and link in with the surgical service that is right next to us in the form of a fistula hospital, as well as that of Galmi - a fully-fledged mission surgical service 3hrs up the road. Let me give you a few profiles of patients we have and are dealing with:
· a Tuareg older man with diabetes we are treating for a deep foot infection requiring quite heavy debridement of his calcaneum. He is slowly healing now over some weeks and has been open to some input from Tuareg Bible stories we have given him to listen to
· a Fulani lady who was so weak and thin from TB she could barely walk was nursed slowly back to health over some weeks
· a Hausa leprosy patient who was immobilised in bed for 5 months before he came back to us. We were able to refer him to Galmi hospital where he had an external fixator placed which slowly healed one of his femurs while the other united by itself with the traditional bone setter’s help. He was able to walk back home
· a Hausa young man from Nigeria who had such a large effusion in his right chest that his liver had been pushed over to the left side of his abdomen is slowly got better with TB treatment and repeated taps of the fluid
· a young girl who was unable to walk following an acute infection of her spine was after one week able to walk out. Her smile afterwards was worth all the effort of coming to Niger!
· the diabetic El Haj patient who gave glory to God in front of me and his friends for the care he had received at Danja. He nearly lost his foot but by the grace of God we were able to save it and restore it back to health
· the young man who came to us with a large benign tumour on his leg which we were able to remove through the skills of our fistula surgeon. He was able to walk out of hospital.
· the young Fulani man who lost all his limbs after being tied up by theives and left over night. At Danja we had to remove his hands and feet which were in various stages of decay and get him into some degree of rehabilitation where he was able to dress and feed himself.
-- A note from Dr. Mark