The FAME medical dispensary
Waking up this morning, I was extremely excited to go to the now opened FAME dispensary. What Africans call a dispensary is equivalent to what Americans would call an outpatient clinic. The dispensary is not legally allowed to The last time I was here in January, they were still wrapping up construction, nothing was painted yet, and none of the rooms were furnished. Now that the dispensary has been opened for three months, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Normally the 2km distance to the clinic is a great walk in the morning, but because we had a bunch of gear to carry over, we took a 40+ year-old Landrover. For those of you who understand Landrovers, you can imagine how excited I was to be bustling up and down a dirt road in Africa. It really was the quintessential Landrover experience.
Closeup of the dispensary
When we made the final turn and saw the dispensary for the first time, I was suddenly reminded of just how beautiful the surroundings are. The clinic is built on a hill much like “the Sound of Music.” You can see for miles in each direction and when the light is good, the view is just magnificent. It really is one of those places in the world where you feel good just being there.
Once I got inside, I was amazed by how much as changed since my first visit in January. All the walls were finished and painted, the wiring was complete (more or less… but a story on that later), there were doors in all the doorways (I met the woodworker on my first day. Apparently it is extremely difficult to get a woodworker to use dried wood that won’t warp), and there was a good collection of drugs in the storeroom. However, the clinic was still missing a decorator’s touch. All the walls were more or less empty and there was very minimal advertising of the name and services provided. I later learned that this has to do with strict government regulations over where signs can be placed and what information can be posted. After a brief tour, we were whisked away to tend to our patients for the day.
Kids from the Shalom orphanage ready for a checkup.
This wasn’t a normal day in the clinic as the dispensary is normally closed on Sundays. The operating hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays. However, this Sunday was special because the dispensary scheduled a health screening for 40 orphans from the Shalom orphanage (no Jewish influence whatsoever), which is about 1km away. A group of Americans on Safari decided to include an altruistic project with their vacation and raised $6,000 for the clinic to provide health care to the local orphanage. In return, they asked to take part in a day’s work to get their hands dirty with the kids. We met our guests outside the orphanage and were immediately mobbed by a whole school of kids. They were absolutely hyper and insanely off-the-wall; it was great! We got a brief tour of the orphanage and they sang the group a few songs in English. I’ll post a video when I get a chance.
"Whoa now, you didn't say anything about a picture!"
Then, we took a kid in each arm and walked them up to the dispensary. There, we measured each kid’s weight, his or her height, and did a quick vision test. Then, each child was brought into one of two consultation rooms to be inspected by Dr. Ivan or Dr. Frank. I sat in on one or two of these and learned very quickly that the most common ailments affecting kids in Karatu are worms and infections. We saw a few kids with infections, but overall the group was very healthy. However, this was not the case two months ago when the children came in for their first screening. Half of them were suffering from worms or malaria. Everyone got treated for worms and was given anti-malarial medication along with multivitamins. The effects of the preliminary treatments were evident in this second screening. It’s amazing what a dollar or two of medication can do here.
While the kids were getting treated, I was doing a study of the electrical system, paying attention to how everything is wired and installed. Going through this process, I learned a lot about how different architecture and construction is in Tanzania. Almost everything is done by hand and little attention is paid to international building standards. In the brief duration when the kids didn’t swarm all over me, I learned that the building needs a dual voltage system of 230V for Tanzanian equipment and 110V for donated American instruments, but the contractors completely ignored the latter system. They wired it into an electrical box, but that box was left empty! Furthermore, the initial plans of the building included Ethernet drops in every room so that the clinic can be networked in the future. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is only one Ethernet drop in the clinic, and that drop may not even be connected to any wires! I smelled a project already.
Dr. Frank tends to a young patient
After every child was screened and treated as necessary, everyone in the clinic was thoroughly exhausted. All in all, it was a very productive day. I got to see the finished clinic for the first time and found a few things that I can enhance in my time here. We helped out the local orphanage with a health screening, which was both fun because it involved forty of the most energetic toddlers you have ever seen, but it was also exhausting for the same reason.
