Hello from the other side. It appears that I have survived!

Clinic #2 was a mystery to me, but the others gave me the breakdown of the day. To start off, I had my first interaction with Solomon, CNFA’s number one fan. No one gets as jazzed about us being here as Solomon. He is an angel in every way, and helps facilitate the gathering of the community and blessing of the day by prayer.

The clinics work as such; patients register first with their name, age, community and stated complaints. They then come to triage for weights, temps, blood pressures and heart rates based on their ages.

We identify people that are very sick at this point and fast track them to the clinical officers immediately, as some of these people need transfer to hospital ASAP. The next step is to speak to the clinic officers who order their meds, and then to the medication table to get them dispensed.

The Kenyan nurses provided education on medication administration and answer any questions they may have. Usually at this point we also provide wound care where appropriate, or extra supplies such as reading glasses.

As a triage nurse, patients come to you to do vitals. I had some children that were delighted to see me, some that were shy, and some downright terrified of this weird white ghostly human. We assessed people’s clothes, and tried to hand out items to people in need, whether it be shoes, hats, shorts, shirts or just some toys.

I had the phenomenal opportunity of transferring 5 patients to the Intando clinic for further assessment by a doctor, and the possibility of admission or further diagnostic testing. I met Peter, the doc at the clinic, who (with the patients permission) allowed me to sit in while he spoke to them in Swahili, and then translated his thoughts and diagnoses into English to collaborate with me. Two patients were admitted right away with pneumonia and sickle cell crisis, while the other three were forwarded on to the local community hospital for X-rays.

It cost $100 KES just to register and $400 KES for an X-ray. Most people cannot afford this cost, which to us back home is the equivalent of $7.50 CAD. The X-ray tech also allowed me to view the taking of the X-rays, which is very similar to our technique back home.

Everyone also receives their disc to keep, as well as any clinic record (minus the ones in hospital) to take home and have. Of the three patients that needed X-rays, only one arm had been broken and healed badly where it would need orthopaedic surgery to rebreak and cast. We then loaded everyone back into the van to take them to the Intando clinic for meds, and back to the CNFA clinic in Budaywa to get home.

All in all, it was a great day. We treated 691 patients. Who knew that in 8 hours you could make such an impact!