After what started out as a heartbreaking and difficult week, there has finally been a light amidst all of the darkness. Thursday and Friday we had the privilege of visiting an amazing Ghanaian doctor, Dr. Abdulai, at one of his two clinics on the outskirts of Tamale. He has a lot of supporters and receives donations from a lot of various sources. This allows his to be able to perform operations for patients, free of charge. Because of this, the line-ups at his clinic are huge! Needs are assessed and after surgery the patients stay in one of many huts on the compound. Each surrounding village has their own hut, and they are allowed to stay there while the patient recovers as long as they maintain the hut and supply the food for the patient. It is an amazing set up. Jackie and I spent the morning in the operating room with Dr. Abdulai on Thursday and had a really good time. He is such a kind man and very welcoming to having us Canadian nursing students at his clinic and watching us work. His entire approach to care is love, which is a breath of fresh air after what we had been witnessing the days prior. He is very loving to his patients and prays over and blesses their body before and after he performs the surgery. He mainly performs hernia repairs, as they are so common here, but will do other things as well. Despite his amazing skill and expertise, no general anesthetic is used during surgery. Only local anesthetic. This means people are fully awake while their abdomens are being cut open and only have numbing substances injected into the skin (must like when your mouth is frozen). Hey Dad and Uncle Korky - imagine being awake during your hernia repairs....yikes! Oh yeah, and the patients are expected to sit up and move themselves over from the operating table onto the stretcher immediately following the procedure. The people here are so tough! We are huuuge wimps in comparison!
Tonight the 8 of us here is Tamale will be taking a tro-tro (basically a really sketchy van-type thing) out to Mole National Park where we will be staying for the weekend. Tomorrow we will get to go out on a safari and I cannot waaait to hopefully see elephants and maybe even some lions! Apparently at the hotel baboons are plentiful and we have to keep a close eye on our purses as they are notorious for sniping tourists' bags. I'm really looking forward to this fun weekend adventure out of town! I'll tell you all about it when I am back in Tamale!
Hope you all are well.
Love and hugs
-Kels
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