Opening X-Ray Department

Back in the early 90s, the rebel war reached Mattru Jong.  Many of the hospital workers fled for their lives.  Pa French, the surgical assistant at the hospital (and still an important member of the hospital surgical team) knew the rebels would conscript him to treat their wounded, and so he escaped to Sherbro Island, off the coast of Sierra Leone, and safe from the rebels.  You can read about some of the events surrounding that time in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from a village near Mattru Jong.  The rebels took over the hospital and used it for their headquarters.  Along the way, someone decided the x-ray machine would be worth some money for the rebel cause, so they put it on a boat on the river to be taken to Guinea. In the journey, the boat overturned and the x-ray machine was lost.  Since that time, the UBC Hospital here has not had regular x-ray, except for a very short time, when they had a machine that also was stolen. 

This week marked the culmination of almost a year of work in trying to re-establish the x-ray department of Mattru UBC Hospital.  How did it happen?  We contacted our good friends Jan & Woutera Vierhout who lead the Kushe foundation in the Netherlands.  Kushe is a word that is used in Sierra Leone both as both a greeting and to express appreciation for whatever someone is doing. The foundation has been instrumental in helping with projects here in Sierra Leone over many years. The Kushe Foundation applied to the Wilde Ganzen (Wild Geese) foundation for a matching grant. Heleen’s brother Henk is an expert with medical imaging, and with his help, a very good deal was obtained with a used digital x-ray machine. The advantage of going digital is that there are no actual x-ray films or developer solutions needed, but everything is developed in the machine and read on computers.  That is huge in a country like Sierra Leone, where films and developer solutions are not easily available. For a relatively small amount, the company offered us a used ultrasound machine as well. Currently we have a portable ultrasound which has been a blessing, but it is somewhat limited in its capabilities. We decided it would be good to purchase the two machines at once so shipping costs could be combined.

With the incredible support of many supporters in the Netherlands and the US, the 26,000 dollars needed were raised in record time, 3 months to be exact.  It was very moving that Marvin Beachy, one of our good friends who was dying of cancer, got up in our home church his last Sunday there, and in his weakened condition appealed for the church to help the hospital get the x-ray machine. He was very instrumental in raising the funds needed for the machines.

So why does it cost 26,000 dollars, you might ask?  We allowed money for shipment, training, x-ray room refurbishment, a computer for viewing x-rays, import duty fees and transportation from Freetown to Mattru, all of which swelled the 18,000 dollar cost for the two machines.  A real miracle it all came together in such a short time!

Arrival of the X-Ray Machine - the crate weighed 830 kg, 
so we were grateful for a truck with a crane!

Will the chains hold? We were glad when the crate touched the ground!

And so, as of January 24, 2018, X-ray is back at the UBC Mattru Hospital!  An official opening was held and celebrated at the hospital, complete with soft drinks and snacks for all the staff and invited guests.  Believe it or not, we still have the X-ray technician from those early days working at the hospital, and it is amazing to see his rejuvenation with bringing back X-ray here.

An X-Ray Technician from Freetown came over to train our staff on the use of the machine.
It was a great opportunity to get a chest x-ray of a little girl who had trouble breathing.

Mr. Jombla, our x-ray technician who in the absence of an X-ray machine faithfully continued to serve the hospital in the TB and Leprosy program.

Opening Celebration

We have already diagnosed a couple of significant injuries and illnesses that would not have been possible to accurately diagnose before.  So we say thank you, dankuwel (Dutch), tenki (Krio) and bissi-ay (not the way you spell it, but we are trying to help your Mende vocabulary)!!

It truly is a blessing to have this equipment, and the people of Mattru Jong are grateful.      

Jon demonstrating the ultrasound machine.

Ouch!!