Community Health Visits to Chad and Belle Vue

I had an opportunity to join the community health group twice last week. On Wednesday we went to Chad, a village approximately 40 km away from Lambarene, along the road to Libreville. The ride out was beautiful as they are cut right out of the jungle. The roads in Gabon are fairly well maintained and are some of the safest I have traveled on in Africa.

As we pulled into the village, Mamma Sophie began her ritual yelling out the window of the pick-up. I have to wonder if there is an easier way to inform the people that the health team has arrived but this system seems to work, plus it has provided for some amusing moments. Mamma Sophie will call out to any mother she sees with an infant and insist that the mother bring her child to the health clinic for vaccinations. The two usually have a friendly shouting match; defending their own position and going back and forth, as we slowly drive by.

Chad is a relatively large village and we had roughly 50 children show up, of which approximately 15 were sick visits. I assisted with the meticulous vaccination process. As we immunize the children, records are kept of all new children seen and of all updated vaccinations. Well child checks are simultaneously conducted, which include weighing the children (which has to be one of my favorite photo opportunities), plotting their weight on growth charts, and conducting brief physicals on every child. Added on top of this patient load are the 15 other pediatric consultations making for a busy day.

There have been a relatively wide variety of cases that I have seen in the community health visits. A majority of the cases are similar to pediatric outpatient clinics in the US…upper respiratory and lower respiratory infections, gastrointestinal problems, skin rashes, etc. Out of the remaining cases, we get a relatively high number of malnourished children, and then a mix of tropical and sometimes bizarre cases…malaria, buruli ulcers, and a woman presenting with a fishhook in her finger(which she somehow managed to endure for 5 days).

On Thursday we traveled by boat to Belle Vue, a small village of approximately 200 people. The village reminded me of villages I encountered as a Peace Corps volunteer. It was remote in location, about 30 miles down the Ooguee River. The village has no electricity, no running water and the people support themselves by fishing and farming. There is something completely calming about working and living in this type of village. While the landscape differed from the village where I lived in Mauritania, it still had a similar ambiance. Just walking around the village and talking to the people gave me a sense of the strong community ties and family bonds that exist in such a tight knit community. The air smells of firewood cooking today’s lunch and sandy paths bisect the thick jungle, connecting one family compound to another. It was a wonderful experience to work here and I am enjoying getting to know the different members of the community health team.