First week at Tenwek

We have arrived at Tenwek Hospital for four days. I started to work in the X-ray department on the second day of our arrival. CT was delayed and we were praying for it to be in business by next week.

We brought 50 pounds of medical supplies from Health Parters International Canada and had them safely delivered. This was greatly appreciated.

I had to train the two green, but eager ultrasound technologists. It was bad timing, as the two best techologists had left for one year of training in the United States. I scanned many cases with them. The equipment was quite limited, two old ultrasound machines.One was hooked up to a thermal paper printer.The second machine is not  hooked up to any printer. What you write down on the requisition form became the record.




I pray that the newer machine donated by a colleague in North America,due to arrive soon, will have better capabilities.I pray that eventually newer ultrasound machines can be hooked up to the central server to keep the images and archieve them.

Two old xray machines were modified for CR. The images can be seen in a 18 x 10 inch monitor. High resolution monitors costing thousands of US dollars are not even dreamed off. But very soon they can be read in other areas of the hosptal via Wi-Fi.  As the week went  on ,this was  being implimented. Soon there will not be the need to print off a hard copy for the patient to take over to the clinic.

The is no fluroscopy machine.Interventional radiology is not done much here. The only two C-arms are kept in operating rooms and constantly used by the orthopedic surgeons. There is a portable ultrasound unit in the operation room,  adequate but not producing the best images.

There are many technical upgrading planned and being implemented.  Limited funding had caused making of hard decisons. Every test ordered is to be paid by the patient .Therefore no test was ordered that are not absolutely needed. Everyone has to adapt and do the best possible.

I witness the bravery of the people who would come to have thier ultrasound tests. They simply accept the occurance of disease and go on with life. There is the wordless bravery, and trust in God (for the Christians) and their inherited steadfast trust in living their life no matter how hard life is.

Esther kept herself busy by offering whatever help was  required. On her third day of our arrival, she went with the Community Health team to one of the rural area health station where oral polio and immunization shots were given to infants. She helped to measure and record the weights of over 80 babies, all carried by their mothers who walked for miles from local villages. Each baby had one needle on each leg. All screamed and cried aloud, but their mothers know that their love ones will be well protected from diseases.

                                                                Read off the weight !