Mission Malawi: Chinsapo Village clinic

On Tuesday, we ran some errands and then Luke Livgren gave a presentation to the staff at the African Bible college community clinic on what we did in Iraq. I think it was eye opening to the staff- not just the horrendous injuries and human suffering, but that this was occuring and they had no idea it was going on. It is interesting that most of the western world ignores what is happening in Mosul, while thousands of people, Muslims and Christians alike, are being targeted, shot, blown into pieces. It is indeed very sad and just another indication that our current media is more interested in pushing forward their political agenda that actually reporting the news!

On Wednesday we went to Chinsapo, a village on the outskirts of Lilongwe. We have been here several times. Their health has improved over the years to the point that I am seriously considering taking them off of our village list. We have limited time and resources, and compared to the remote villages, these folks can easily walk to a mission hospital. However, that final decision will come next year. We saw 151 people between Dr. Young, myself and Luke. We did 71 malaria tests, 59 % were positive. We only saw one very sick person (malaria), most of the other issues were either chronic or easily addressed with malaria meds or antibiotics. The area we are in (the school offices, I think), looks crowded but we managed patient flow much better this year.
Enjoy the photos!

Bridge to get into Chinsapo. Hate this bridge, truly!

I am driving the Pajero across while Joey takes this photo.

Team minus Charles who was taking the photo

Triage with Alicia (white girl) and Lidson (in orange shirt) helping her

Daniel ready to do malaria tests

Luke (in black) and Daniel doing malaria tests. We were set up for wound care but really didn't have many wounds.

Another photo of Alicia

Inside the school office - Dr Young standing at the door to her 'office', mine is to her left

Joey and Jessie in the pharmacy

These four boys were not sick at all, but their mom sent them to the clinic to get a free malaria test. We saw many people who were either looking for something 'free' or had been to the hospital in the last 2-3 days and were not completely cured yet. (we see that behavior in the US - one or two days of antibiotics, still sick, show up in the ED hoping for some new miracle drug). Since we had a limit of how many patients we were going to see, it is very discouraging to have these sorts of people 'take up space' for someone that could be really ill. Of course, their tests were all negative.