Njinikom

Last week I was able to go to Njinikom for a visit.  Njinikom is near and dear to my heart for several reasons.  Njinikom was the first place that I went to in Africa, and the first place that I was sent by Mission Doctors Association.  When I arrived at the airport in Douala in January of 2010, I was met by Sr. Angeline Wongbi.  Sr. Angeline was a nurse anesthetist at St. Martin de Porres Hospital in Njinikom, having attended nurse anesthesia school in Nigeria 10 years prior, when formally trained nurse anesthetists were even more scarce in Cameroon than they are now.  She was so pleased to have an anesthesiologist visiting (“doctor anaesthetist”), and to consider my ideas in the context of other teaching that she had had.  I spent the entire month with her before I learned that she was 70 years old!  I was blessed to return to Njinikom in January of 2011 while she was still there.  Unfortunately, Sr. Angeline died in the summer of 2012 after a difficult illness.  I miss her dearly but will always be grateful for the time that I spent with her.

  

The anesthetists in Njinikom are now Mr. Julius, Sr. Martha, and Mr. Eric.  Mr. Eric is the newest, having completed his training in Yaounde this past August.  It is always a pleasure to be able to spend time with these anesthetists and to understand their practice patterns, look at their equipment with them in case there is any way to help, and consider options for anesthetics.  This visit, they had received some new equipment, including new anesthesia machines, via a container from Holland.  The current problem faced by all the hospitals that I have visited is that bottled oxygen is very expensive to purchase, and this is required to drive most mechanical ventilators on anesthesia machines.  Supplemental oxygen for spontaneous or manual ventilation can be provided by oxygen concentrators as long as electricity is available, but this will not drive a pressure driven ventilator.  Some new options for pressurized medical gases may be available soon; another option is electrically driven ventilators (useful when there is electricity!).

The matron at St. Martin de Porres Hospital, for a few more months, is Sr. Xaveria.  Sr. Xaveria is one of these people that just makes everyone feel needed and wanted, and exudes energy and organization.  She has worked with Mission Doctors for many years and shepherded many missionaries through their assignments in Cameroon.  All of the sisters in Njinikom, like the sisters in Shisong, are friendly and welcoming and greet me like I have been there forever even though I only spent 2 months there.

While I was in Njinikom I was able to attend the festival for the 20th anniversary of the reign of the Fon.  A Fon is a traditional ruler and the Fon of Njinikom is in Fundong and is Fon Vincent Yuh II.  The celebration consisted of Mass, speeches, and some traditional celebrations including a “fantasia” in which men on horses approach the Fon in formation and the horses dance and “bow”.
  

 

Currently serving a 3-year term in Njinikom are Drs. Jennifer Thoene and Brent Burket, there with their four children.  I had not met them before and so it was a joy to spend the weekend with them.  Since I do not cook here (and do not cook all that much anyway), it was a great treat to have Jennifer’s cooking for a few days.  It turned out that most of the Lay Mission Helpers from the region (the Hornes, who I have shown here before, and the Martins and the Newburns all serving in Bamenda) were also visiting Njinikom for the weekend, along with a family medicine resident (Connie Leeper) from Ventura, California there for a rotation, and a guest of the Hornes, Sara Tuzel. All told, there were 15 American children and 11 American adults in Njinikom last weekend.  St. Martin de Porres has a lovely guest house for the visiting medical teams as well as space for missionaries, and the views are spectacular.  Sunday morning we all attended Mass at St. Anthony parish, and I am sure we made quite a sight.  You can find all of the blogs at www.MissionDoctors.org and at www.LayMissionHelpers.org.  Of course, you can also find information there about serving as a missionary.
 

On Monday I was able to visit Mbingo Baptist Hospital.  This is one of the hospitals run in partnership with the Cameroon Baptist Convention.  They have a nurse anesthesia training program, an Australian anesthesiologist there until July, and a number of ex-pat physicians there for various periods of time.  Mbingo is one of the PAACS sites (https://paacs.net), whose purpose is to help address the need for well-trained surgeons at mission hospitals in Africa.  They have made great progress in their new ICU and recovery areas, which will hopefully open within the year.  One of the realities in mission service is the “siloes”.  There are many reasons for this, but I feel like keeping the lines of communication open can help to advance the goals that we all have to share the love of Christ and to grow medicine in Cameroon.  It is exciting to see these hospitals working so hard with their donors to upgrade both equipment and training.  Additionally I was able to hear resoundingly positive feedback about the Northwest Region Anesthesia Conference held here in Shisong on December 7.  The anesthetists were pleased to have had an English language conference and to be able to discuss issues of interest to them.  They, along with the anesthetists in Njinikom were very much looking forward to the next conference.

One of the most exciting parts of the trip was the progress made on the roads.  The trip from Shisong to Njinikom, which used to take 5-6 hours can now be made in about 3 hours.  This is also better for my neck, but not as good for the workout of my core muscles.

For those of you awaiting spring, I saw this blooming today.  It reminds me of forsythia which is beautiful in Rochester in the spring.
 

From todays’ liturgy (Feast of St. Hilary):
January 13, 2014
“It was not you who chose me, says the Lord, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” (Cf. Jn 15:16)

October 6, 2013

(yes, my posts have been delayed a bit.  Hopefully from here on out they will be more timely). 

Today is Sunday…I arrived in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, on Thursday evening and was met at the airport by Mr. Benson Tanjong.  He is a nurse anesthetist in Shisong and he was in Yaounde for the 4th Congress of the Society of Camaroonian Anesthesia and Critical Care.  He kindly arranged for transportation for me from the airport to the site of the congress and the next evening back to the center of Yaounde so that I could meet my transportation to Shisong.  This transportation was provided by people that he knew that had cars, and who generously drove the distance to and from the conference site.  While I was there, I was graciously received by the Cameroonian physicians and nurse anesthetists, and was able to assist with a successful program for the Lifebox program (www.Lifebox.org) which involved training on the pulse oximeters, the WHO Surgery Safety Checklist, and distributing the donated pulse oximeters to the representative anesthetists of hospitals who needed them.

Sr. Xaveria, the matron of St. Martin de Porres Hospital in Njinikom, and Sr. Ruphina, the matron of St. Elizabeth Hospital here in Shisong were in the US to receive an award for their work from Medicines for Humanity (www.MedicinesforHumanity.org) and returned Friday evening.  They, along with 2 other sisters and their driver, picked me up on Saturday morning to go to Shisong.  The distance from Yaounde to Shisong is long and some of the roads difficult; however, any travel in Cameroon is made particularly lengthy by the many stops that must be made along the way.  Yesterday, the most important stop included a visit to Dr. Leslie, a physician who had worked for several years with Sr. Xaveria in Njinikom and who has been ill.  Additionally, his father was being buried in Bamenda yesterday and Sr. Xaveria made arrangements to have someone from Njinikom attend the service.  Another interesting stop was for lunch, which was at a roadside café somewhat different from those we are used to in the US.  They did, however, have coffee, and that was key.

Today at Mass, along with the regular Mass, we celebrated the Feast of St. Francis which actually occurred on Friday October 4.  This parish is served by Franciscan Capuchins, and of course the hospital and schools by the Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis, so there are also numerous secular groups observing Franciscan spirituality.  The Mass was indeed a festive event, with joyful processions for each event of the Mass.  The music was provided wonderfully by the school children who sang numerous songs accompanied by electric keyboard and African drums and rhythm instruments.   The joyful procession of the lectionary made me wonder if this is what it was like when Ezra brought the Torah forward and read it before the people, as described in the book of Nehemiah (Neh 8:1-6).  As the Gospel reading was about the apostles asking Jesus to “increase our faith,” Father spoke in his homily about receiving and living the gift of faith, and went on to talk about the faith of St. Francis and St. Clare as lived out among all of the Franciscans present, and to speak about the spirituality of Pope Francis and his teaching on love and service, especially to the poor.