"For the body does not consist of one member but of many....God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose." 1 Corinthians 12:14,18
Dr. Jerry Brown thanking the ELWA Hospital staff |
Monday
morning, February 9, was my last morning at the hospital—in just a few hours I
would be headed for the airport. We held an appreciation program with breakfast
for all the ELWA Hospital staff after our morning chapel gathering, to
recognize those who had served so courageously during the worst of the Ebola
crisis. Along with Dr. Brown, our
Medical Director, I was asked to say a few words. As I spoke, thanking our
nurses, midwives, aides, and cleaners for coming to work during the toughest
times in August, September, and October, my mind went back to a meeting with
health care planners from an international NGO.
They wanted to know: “What allowed ELWA to remain open when other
hospitals closed?” The health system
collapse was one of the greatest unanticipated consequences of the Ebola
epidemic. It led to many deaths due to malaria or obstructed labor or
pneumonia—illnesses which have nothing to do with Ebola, but which went
untreated because hospitals and clinics were shut down. ELWA Hospital was one of the bright spots,
remaining open and caring for the sick through the most difficult months of the
crisis.
Also
on Monday morning, we discharged little Noah (not his real name) from the
hospital. Noah, a five week old baby, had come in about 12 days earlier with
severe vomiting. He couldn’t keep anything down. He was hungry and was
breastfeeding vigorously, but after every feeding he would vomit all of it up. He
wasn’t making dirty diapers any more. He had lost weight and become dehydrated. One of our doctors suggested he might have
pyloric stenosis—a thickening of the muscle around the outlet of the stomach
into the small intestine, which leads to blockage of the flow of nutrition. The
best test for pyloric stenosis is an ultrasound exam, and I’ve developed
reasonable ultrasound skills over many years of scanning and learning on the
job. I went to the office and found our big two-volume ultrasound text, and
read about pyloric stenosis. With the ultrasound machine, you can measure the
thickness of the muscle in the pyloric canal (the outlet of the stomach) to
confirm the diagnosis. As I scanned little Noah, one of my colleagues joked
with me about doing the scan with the ultrasound in one hand and my textbook in
the other. I told him this was not the first time I would be doing this, nor
would it be the last! We got some clear images showing that little Noah did indeed
have pyloric stenosis and would require surgery.
you know Rick loves babies |
God
has blessed ELWA with some truly gifted staff. Dr. Jerry Brown, our medical
director, is one of the few residency trained surgeons in the country. We also
have some highly qualified anesthetists, one of whom is especially skilled
handling infants. So after coordinating
the schedules of all the staff who were needed, the child had a successful
operation about 4 days after admission. As we monitored Noah through his
recovery, I realized we were one of only a few institutions in Liberia that could
pull together the resources to successfully diagnose and operate on this little
baby.
After
the surgery, little Noah improved quickly. He nursed voraciously and started
gaining weight. His mom and dad were so
relieved! Finally on my last day in
country, he would be going home!
This
takes me back to the question that was asked by the visiting international health
care coordinators: After the reopening of the hospital on August
6th, how did ELWA manage to stay open when other facilities were
having repeated closures? As I see it, there are two reasons. The first
is that our staff are mission driven. They are motivated by the example of
Jesus Christ and his call to care for their neighbors who are in need —their
belief in God is no mere intellectual assent or religious ritual, but real,
where-the-rubber-meets-the-road faith that strengthened them to do this difficult and fearful work and leave the results to God.
And the second answer has to do with little Noah: when you put all the pieces
of the puzzle together, you can accomplish so much more than any one of you
could accomplish on your own. That synergy, the teamwork that results in the
ability to give a couple their baby back who surely would have died otherwise,
makes the work so satisfying. This, too, can motivate people to come to work,
when they know they are a critical piece of the puzzle that saves lives.
ELWA Hospital staff at morning devotions
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2 comments:
Praise the Lord!
Thanks, Rick. We've been blessed by your testimony and reminder of the joy of serving the Lord, and the most needy of this world. Blessings, Rob & Nancy
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