Beacon Medical Camp

It falls to me to describe the clinic we did two days ago @ the Beacon of Hope Center in Rongai. Here goes:

The AM started in typical fashion for a project such as this. There was much preparation the day before, but this undertaking was on a large scale. The difference between this clinic and Bissil was that we had the personnel resources to take care of the loose ends rather quickly, and we started relatively on time.


Many people on our team and Beacon Staff worked very hard throughout the day in registration, in triage (blood pressure&temperature), in seeing patients ( 3 of ours and 5 from Beacon) , in HIV testing, in lab (blood sugar and malaria testing), in pharmacy (the very picture of controlled chaos), ushers (helping people to get from place to place), translators (sent surely from heaven above) and kitchen workers (to feed all the other workers).

We saw 1500+ patients that day (not a typo), and had 90+ people do HIV tests. We pray that they that not only received medicine and advice to help them, but also that they felt God's love in some small way. The Beacon of Hope Center has a relatively new clinic (up and running for about 6 weeks) so we hope our clinic was a good advertisement for them, and many of the people we saw can be hooked up there for ongoing health care.

Very early in the morning, one of our providers saw a woman 6 months pregnant who was threatening a miscarriage. Being fully unequipped to help her, we were able to get her quick transportation to a hospital for the appropriate medication. The miscarriage seemed to be halted and fetal heart tones were reasonable, so we pray that her baby dodged a bullet.
We also saw a lot of the things that we see back in the States: with age, bodies break down the same on both sides of the ocean. We treated lots of malaria, amoeba, and worms. One of our providers saw a probable elephantiasis, so it was educational for us as well.

The patient I saw that I will not forget is a little 8 year old named Margaret. Her 20 year old sister had brought her in because their mother had died. We talked about some other problems they had and I encouraged them both to be HIV tested. I have ordered HIV testing on a lot of people in the US, and have (thankfully) never had to tell someone that they are positive. Margaret's 20 year old sister was negative, but Margaret was positive.

Statistics tell us that HIV in Africa is approaching 1 in every 10 people, but statistics are statistics and here was Margaret standing in front of me with HIV. With the help of medicine (the government supplies this free of charge if she can get to where they distribute it) she can lead a relatively normal life, but it will be a different life and a shortened life. Admitting that it's not fair for her seems very weak. There is injustice and then there is INJUSTICE.
Margaret's beautiful face will always be the face of HIV in Africa for me.

In short, I think the consensus was that the clinic was a great success, a testament to many people pulling hard in the same direction, enjoying the blessing of God with outstanding results. All the workers were very tired by 5:30, but happy that the day went well. PRAISE GOD--

Paul Pankratz