Children's Hospital Boston in Ghana

What a week.....

First, I should thank Bev, Christine, Judy and Francis for inviting me to come again on this trip. I know you guys worked so hard and long to put this together, and the work done here this week shows it. Every detail was taken care of, so congratulations to you guys; I am proud to work with you guys.  Second, what a fabulous team of professionals; you were a joy to work with. We raised the complexity of care we provided this time, and doing this far away from home was only possible because of all the expertise available with this team. Along with all medical care, the team of volunteers provided many schools in the area with books and school essentials - making this team really multidimensional in the help provided to this region.

Choosing who we provide care for is always a difficult task, but I can say we changed the lives of those we picked - and I am sure there will be more trips in the future to help others.

We also got to test the medical emergency system this week, and I was glad that help was just around the corner (7 minutes in all) - just like home! I might use it again in the future!

So one more day to go, and I am hoping that things work well on our last day, and as we close shop, I feel I have had a great time this week.

Ravi

Daily challenges

As nurses in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Children's Hospital Boston we face so many daily challenges. These include alleviating fears for the children and their families, proving comfort and pain control, adjusting medicines to assure essential cardiac output, dressing wounds, etc. Every nurse always asks, "Did I give enough? Could I have done more?"

Here in Ghana, we ask ourselves the same thing. We are reminded of the huge abundance of tools, equipment and educated providers that we have at home. And we improvise and do our best to give our all.

Yesterday I made diapers out of washcloths and tape that we brought from home. We taught local nurses about cardiac defects and shared biscuits from home.

But the most rewarding part of the day was sharing smiles, learning a little bit about each other and watching the children recover.

There is always more to do and more to give, both at home and here.

- Moira Carroll, RN

Things are different here

I have to keep telling myself that. There aren't the resources, education or training here that there are in the U.S. But there are times like this morning when the differences between the way we provide care and the way it's provided in Ghana are brought into stark contrast.

The team went to C5 for rounds and found that Lisa, one of the girls who had surgery on Tuesday, was in pain. The children here are very stoic and are expected not to complain - even after open-heart surgery - so Lisa wasn't crying or moaning. The main giveaway was her shallow breathing. Patients in pain breathe very shallowly because it hurts to breathe deeply. People who don't breathe deeply don't get the oxygen they need throughout their bodies, so don't recover as quickly.

The Children's nurses checked with the Ghanaian resident and nurses and found that Lisa hadn't received a dose of pain medication at the scheduled time. This is not uncommon. Another patient recently went through an entire night without pain meds - two nights after surgery.

Bev Small, Moira Carroll and Judy Hurley leapt into action this morning. They quickly gave Lisa oral and IV pain meds so she could start to feel some relief and changed the dressing on her incision site. They were simple things that these nurses do as a matter of course, but they made a point of telling the nurses and the resident that they needed to watch the pain meds more closely in all of the patients.

Without this type of teaching, the impact of this mission will be limited, so I was reminded of something that I've heard and thought about a thousand times this week: Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for one day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Touching hearts

Several times this week I have been asked to write an entry for this site, but how do you put into words what is happening in Kumasi? Smiles from the parents, tears from the children. At the end of the week, numbers will not count. The only thing that will matter is how we have touched these children's hearts in many ways.

- Bev Small, co-leader of the mission to Ghana

A drop in the ocean

I've been trying for a couple days to post some photos of our trip to a shelter and orphanage on Tuesday. The Internet finally played along this morning.

Our two stops were the Missionaries of Charity, Sisters of Mother Teresa, a home for abandoned children and mentally and physically disabled children and adults, and the Kumasi Children's Home, an orphanage run by the state.

The Sisters of Mother Teresa have been caring for Kumasi's children and some of their destitute mothers since 1965. Among their services are weekly meals for very malnourished children. They would allow us to take only one photo in the home, which I can't seem to get to upload to the site. I'll leep trying.

The Kumasi Children's Home houses 86 people, aged 2 months to 25 years. It was established in 1965 by Social Welfare and cares for children who have lost one or both parents, or who have been abandoned. They provide education and living facilities on site.

Both were clean and well kept and the children were obviously well cared for, but as Sister Ursula, the nun who gave us the tour said, they are "the poorest of the poor and what we do is a drop in the ocean."

- Matt Cyr