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)

Happenings

On December 7 the first Northwest Region Anesthesia Meeting was held here in Shisong.  It was well attended and well received by English speaking anesthetists from the region and beyond.  If there was a flaw, it was in trying to do too much but there was a variety of topics and speakers.  The organizers are to be congratulated and I am sure that more conferences will be held in the future.

On December 9 I attended the horse races in Tobin, the administrative center of Kumbo.  They even had ice cream (or some sort of cold treat).

 Valentina is an Italian physician who remained in Shisong after the San Donato mission to do some database work at the cardiac center.  Before she left, she and Dr. Charles and I had a cut-throat Ping-Pong tournament.  I will not say publicly who won.

 On December 15 I traveled to Yaounde with Sr. Jethro, Brother Boniface, and Sr. Terese to extend my visa and pay some Christmas visits to various offices in Yaounde that work with the Cardiac Center.  While there, I met Maria and Brad Festen who work with SIL International in the Central African Republic.  They are in Cameroon due to the current troubles in the CAR and they generously hosted all of us for dinner.  We also took Sr. Terese on her first elevator ride and visited with Sr. Apollonia who is in Yaounde working on a communications degree.  I promised I would not post her picture in her kitchen-work clothes so instead I am posting this one of Sr. Jethro crushing pumpkin seeds with a stone.

 

After returning from Yaounde, of course, it was time to prepare to celebrate Christmas.  There is a large Catholic population and a significant Protestant population here in Kumbo, and the non-Christians also wish everyone well at this time.  The ICU staff had a Christmas party at a local hotel, which coincided with the Cameroon Cup championship football (soccer) match, so in addition to good food and drinks, we were able to celebrate the win of the Bamenda team over the Yaounde team.  The hospital also held parties for numerous groups of staff complete with Christmas caroling.

 Christmas trees look a little different here but the idea is there.  I’m sure that Logan and Eric did eventually decorate their tree!  I went there to help but had to leave before we actually hung anything on the tree.

The novices of the Tertiary Sisters put on a Christmas play on Christmas Eve before Mass.  It was very well done, beginning with Adam and Eve and their choice to reject God’s love, then walking us through the (very enthusiastic) prophets, and taking us through the birth of Christ with (very enthusiastic) angels and shepherds, one reluctant goat, and wise men visiting a conniving Herod.  A newborn from the maternity ward played the part of Jesus.  All of this revelry was followed by a beautiful Christmas Vigil Mass and a celebratory Christmas Day.

 

Following Christmas Kumbo holds a “Cultural Week.”   The palace, villages, and family groups participate in traditional dances and other activities.

End of year giving

For those who were looking for a review of how to support this work, here are four options:

1)  Make an unrestricted gift to Mission Doctors Association.  This will not support the project I am working on directly but will support the missionaries and work of MDA.  This gift is tax deductible.

2)  Make a directed donation to Mission Doctors Association (www.missiondoctors.org).  This option is tax deductible and 10% will go to MDA to support their work and administrative expenses.

3)  Make donation to the Cardiac Center and indicate that you would like to support a patient surgery (or just donate to the Cardiac Center). (http://shisonghospital.org/wordpress/donate/)  The entire donation will go to the Cardiac Center.   We are not a 501c3 organization so I do not believe this donation is tax deductible. 

4)  Send a donation to Mi-Do (www.mi-do.org).  This organization allows you to choose a patient to support, but I do not think that you have to.  I believe that the entire donation will go to the purpose that you choose.  The donation options are in euros, but they do not have a problem processing American credit cards.  They are not yet a 501c3 organization either.

For those of you not looking for end-of-year-giving options but want to see pictures, I will work on uploading them and sharing more about Shisong and Yaounde soon!

Merry Christmas

Sorry for the long absence.  Last week I traveled to Yaounde to extend my visa.  I will be posting more after Christmas.

Mi-Do

Once again, there are a number of organizations who are supporting the work of St. Elizabeth’s and the Cardiac Center.  One of these is based in South Tyrol, Italy and is called Mi-Do, which is for Micro Donations.  They can be found here: www.Mi-Do.org.  Andrea Zeller and Dr. Claudia von Lutterotti were here in Shisong in November to explain their approach and to learn how best to support the work here.  Unfortunately, somehow I never took their picture while they were here, but you can see them in the advertising flier below:

Their concept is to collect small donations from many donors in order to support individuals in need here in Shisong.  There are several children living at the orphanage here (someday I will write about the orphanage).  Mi-Do has committed to providing their school fees until their families are able to provide for them.  There are also numerous patients awaiting funding for heart surgery.  Some of these are profiled on the Mi-Do website, and you can choose one to support if you wish.  Recently they completed raising the support for one of the patients on the website, and she will be scheduled for surgery in January.

Currently, donations to Mi-Do are in Euros, but they are able to accept donations via credit card from US donors.  We are working on ways for them to have the donation amounts appear in dollars and for them to be a 501c3 organization so that donations will be tax deductible, but since they are primarily seeking small donations we are hoping that these barriers will not impede potential US donors in the short term.

By the way, South Tyrol has an interesting history.  It is a semi-autonomous region of Italy that is primarily German speaking.  The Tertiary Sisters of Saint Francis that work here in Shisong have their origins there where their foundress, Sr. Maria Hueber, was born.

Belgians (Happy Sinterklaas)

There are two teams in Shisong currently from Belgium.  The first team arrived last week.  They are sponsored by an organization through their hospital called LUMOS.  They have a website, but not an English one (www.LUMOS.org).  If you read Dutch you can learn all about them.  Over the years they have provided significant support to St. Elizabeth’s.  This year’s team consists of an anesthesiologist, a biomedical engineer, 2 physiotherapists, and two nurses.  Of course, the work of the team that I was most interested in is that they brought a capnograph for the main OR of the hospital and provided training for it, they provided monitors for the PACU, and Frederic, the engineer, fixed the monitors in the OR that were not working. 

The second team is a regular team that performs congenital heart surgery.  This team, also from the University Hospital of Leuven, has committed to provide a team to the Cardiac Center each year.  This team was here while I was here last year, although only two of the team members are the same.  Many of the others, including the surgeon and intensivist, were here two years ago.  They have performed cases including repair of Tetrology of Fallot correction of supravalvular pulmonary artery stenosis, and repair of interrupted aortic arch.

Below, you see the newly repaired gas concentration monitor (for measuring the concentrations of inspired and expired anesthetic gases and carbon dioxide), Benson displaying his new nerve stimulator (used for monitoring the activity of muscle relaxants), and the Belgian cardiac team climbing down the rocks at the Shisong waterfall.

The LUMOS team left today along with 2 Belgian midwife students who have been here on clinical rotations since September.  The cardiac team leaves tomorrow, so as far as I can tell there will be a complete absence of Belgians in Shisong for a while.  There are, however, still Dutch nursing students so there will not be an absence of Dutch spoken here.

Today is the feast of Saint Nicholas, celebrated in Belgium as Sinterklaas.  For me, this meant that there were Belgian chocolates wrapped in foil decorated as St. Nicholas.

Check back soon to learn about Mi-Do and their activity in Shisong! (www.Mi-Do.org)

Thanksgiving

Several people were concerned that I might miss out on Thanksgiving, or at least on turkey.  To be honest, I can do without the turkey, but I did not have to do without either.  As it turns out, there are a  number of Americans in Kumbo for various reasons, and we had a gathering for Thanksgiving, complete with football.  As at home, it is easy to be thankful in Shisong, so I thought I would take a cue from Eric Horne’s blog and include some of the things for which I am thankful.

The Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis:  I am grateful for their spirituality, hospitality, and generosity.  In the face of many challenges, they support hospitals in a poor region of the world that provide dignified and professional medical and nursing care.  They also work with volunteers and missions from many cultures and witness great love to all of us, as well as allow us to witness to them.

The Hornes: It has been wonderful to have people from my own culture with whom to share and process, as well as spend some time with.  I am grateful for their generosity and their witness, not to mention sharing their home and food!  Their blog is here: http://hornefamilymission.blogspot.com.

My supportive department and department chair.  I am blessed to have both a department and a mission willing to work on creative solutions.

Friends and family, both at home and in Cameroon, including Mission Doctors Association and especially my dad, for whom this venture is very challenging and who is going out of his way to be prayerful and supportive. 

Running water, a water heater, and the people who cook for me at the hospital canteen.  Every time I go out walking I see people carrying water for their homes, carrying firewood, or carrying materials for their farm.  This way of living is difficult and time-consuming, yet carried out with joy and gratitude.  It is a constant lesson to me.

Religious freedom.  There are many Muslims and Christians here that live peacefully and as good neighbors.  Worldwide, many Christians and Christian missionaries live with great difficulty and persecution in worship and in living their faith.

There are two teams at St. Elizabeth’s from Belgium.  I will write about them soon.