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!!

Celebrating the Holidays in Mattru Jong

In this blog we want to share a bit about the holiday season in Mattru Jong.

Our own holiday season started early as we received visitors from the Netherlands: Jan & Woutera Vierhout. Woutera and Heleen have been friends for over 20 years and Woutera has visited Sierra Leone multiple times. Woutera & Jan are also board members of the Kushe Foundation which helped us raise funds for our X-ray machine. We had a very good time of catching up and were able to take some time off while they were here to enjoy the beauty of Sierra Leone!

Shortly after our friends left, we celebrated our first Christmas party with a very special group of children. Through her work at the hospital, Heleen has come to know children with various disabilities. The caregivers of these children don’t have an easy life as they try to take care of their children while often being shamed and blamed by the community. Children with disabilities are commonly seen as demonic and their parents are suspected of witchcraft. The nurses who are volunteering with Heleen at the Psychosocial Unit embraced with enthusiasm the idea of organizing a Christmas party for these children. Fourteen of them attended with their caregivers and listened with appreciation to the clear message that God has created all of us unique and that He honors those who take care of the vulnerable. One of the caregivers who attended the party commented: “When you have a child like this you think you are the only one, but now you see there are many others.” We are praying for discernment on how to further serve these children and their families.

 

Signing Children in for the Party

Games

Enjoying a meal together.

A few days later, with support financial from former missionaries, we were able to organize a Christmas party for all hospital staff. It had been years since this last had taken place and everyone was very appreciative! As soon as the music started, people were dancing! We sang some Christmas carols and the Chaplain shared a message. Sadly we don’t have many good pictures of the party, but that is for a good reason: everyone was moving/dancing with so much enthusiasm that the majority of our pictures is blurred or has people dropping out of the screen!

Our midwife (left) and two of the nurses at the party.

 

Chaplain giving a message.

Just before Christmas our friend Janet Nickel arrived from Freetown. She has been a missionary in Sierra Leone for several decades and used to share a house and later a compound with Heleen. Her visit was a big blessing as we missed our friends and family extra over the holidays! It was also nice to have Matt’s new fiancée Rebecca around. Christmas eve we spent playing games together and Christmas morning we attended the church service near the hospital. In the afternoon we cooked a meal together and invited the Peace Corps volunteer who is teaching at a local school. After lunch Jon did a C-section and delivered not one but two babies - Christmas twins!

Christmas Day with Matt & Rebecca.

Christmas cooking was fun with lots of ingredients that Janet brought from Freetown!

New Years Eve and New Year’s Day we spent quietly at home, playing more games and working on the 1000 piece Van Gogh puzzle that Woutera & Jan brought us! To treat our homesickness we had “stroopwafel” from the Netherlands with our coffee!

In the first week of the new year we celebrated the birth of the first baby of 2018 and the wedding of Jon’s colleague Michael Josiah (Surgical Tech) and Fatmata Sesay.

The first baby of 2018 with his mother, a nurse, Jon and Dr. Harrison, Jon's colleague from Nigeria.

Josiah and Fatmata getting ready to cut the cake.

And so we start a new year in Mattru Jong. Over the holidays we have reflected repeatedly on our ministry here. One quote that spoke to us came from Henri Nouwen (Bread for the Journey; January 5): “Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present in the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.” Please pray that God will give us patience, the will to be present with the people we meet, and to bring His hope and healing to this place.

At the wedding, wearing our first "Ashobi" (matching outfits).