Goodbye Dr Sarah, hello Dr Fiona!

The first few months of 2012 has been a busy time for the  N/a’an ku sê Lifeline Clinic in Epukiro.  Our Lifeline doctor, Dr Sarah France left on 19^th May after being with us for a year.  She has been replaced by Dr Fiona Thomson, who will be with us for 3 months.  Fiona is from Glasgow and is training in internal medicine.  She also has a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and has interests in infectious diseases and alcoholism; all of which are incredibly prevalent amongst the San Bushman communities.

Fiona leaves in August and we have another doctor coming out in July who will remain with us for a year.

Key facts for the first quarter of 2012·        

• From January to April 2012 the Lifeline Clinic has seen 1347 patients (23% increase on the same period in 2011)
• On average 44.5% of the patients are children
• On average 80% of the patients are San Bushman who continue to get their treatment for free.  All costs are covered by N/a’an ku sê Foundation.
• Cases ranged from common coughs and cold to Tuberculosis and injuries sustained from domestic abuse
• On average we have spent $42,000NAD (4000 Euros) a month on running the Lifeline clinic 
• We continue to be unsupported by governmet funding aand are solely reliant on generous donations.

  
  

Case Studies in 2012

Maria

Maria came to the clinic with TB in her lymph gland so we referred her to hospital in Gobabis (120km from the clinic in Eupkiro) to start her treatment.

When she was discharged she was being supervised by the State Clinic TB program.  One day she came to see us instead because of a “problem with her back”.  We discovered that she had spinal TB, the state clinic had diagnosed this, but unfortunately they had not treated it. They simply told her to see a Doctor.  Dr Sarah therefore took her back to hospital. Now she is in hospital in Windhoek receiving specialist care.   Whilst caring for Maria Dr Sarah noticed two of her four children were malnourished.  She therefore enrolled them onto our feeding program to boost their nutrition levels.           Zacheo Earlier this year a young boy called Zacheo came into the clinic with an abscess in his mouth as a result of not brushing his teeth properly.  We see a lot of this at the clinic so Jana and Lauren, two of our medical volunteers, had fun teaching all the local children the importance of bushing their teeth! They distributed heaps of tooth brushes and toothpaste. We are delighted that we have started our immunisation program. We extend our sincere thanks to Frabrizio Feruglio, Haig Babikyan, Alan and Jane Crack, Antony Clements and Rob Duijvelshoff who donated money towards a new fridge and fridge battery. We can now try and improve the local immunisation rates, protecting children from preventable diseases such as measles, polio and tetanus. The fridge is portable and therefore we can take it when we do our outreach clinics in the more remote areas of Epukiro.