My Experience with Healthcare in Zambia

While in Zambia, I spent a little time at the Namwianga clinic. It's a rural clinic. Fairly small, but it serves many, many people. Mondays are the busiest because it's designated for patients with HIV to come for HAART. I happened to be there during Zambia's Child Health Week, so there were several kiddos coming in for immunizations. 

There's a lab, women & children's ward, men's ward, radiology (X-ray and ultrasound), pharmacy, vaccination room, consult/triage room, physical therapy, L&D, and postpartum rooms. As I understand, there is also a surgical suite for simple procedures. Below is a picture of the L&D suite. Can you imagine? 

I spent my day with the clinic officer, who is a nurse that graduated about 9 months ago...and she basically does what a nurse practitioner would do in the States. It's crazy. She's smart and very good at explaining things. We also had a couple of Zambian nursing students with us, and it was very interesting taking to them and learning about their nursing school experience.

The craziest thing I saw? An elderly woman came in with a tumor on the front of her neck. A tumor that was almost as big as her head. I have never seen a tumor like that before. Oddly enough, she was having headaches...which is why she came in. Part of my was just stunned by how big the tumor was. Another part of me was trying to figure out how (if someone in the States had a tumor like this) you would go about resecting it. Still, another part of me was just saddened. I asked one of the students if she had seen tumors like that before. She said, "Yes. All the time. Don't you?" So I told her how, most of the time, we treat tumors when they're small. She was amazed. 

The most sobering thing? I think that would have to be all the babies and toddlers that came in with these rashes. Rashes from being left in soiled nappies for too long, and not being cleaned up well. I'm not talking about your average diaper rash. I'm talking like the skin on their trunks and legs is super irritated. The clinic officer told me it's pretty common, especially if there are several children in the family...they just get overlooked. Of course, there were also several who were malnourished and (consequently) not meeting developmental milestones. Heartbreaking. 

I mentioned Child Health Week. Part of that involves an experienced nurse taking groups of students out to places like The Haven and smaller villages to make sure every child is immunized. So that's the one picture I was able to get before my camera died. It was quite the event! 

It's always a humbling experience to see healthcare systems in countries like Zambia. And it's a privilege to do whatever you can to help those that come. It makes me extremely thankful for the technology and research we have here.