Friday April 11

April 11, 2014

It is Friday afternoon and our week is almost finished.  As usual, it is hard to believe that the week is over so fast.  It was a busy week, tougher than many previous trips for many reasons.  There are many things that were harder – customs in particular.  The roads are quite congested because of massive amounts of construction around the city; the phone network often didn’t work.

We took care of many patients, however, and did lots of education and made lots of connections.  We saw old friends and made new ones.  In all, our ENT team performed 16 major operations, and the anesthesia team provided anesthesia for these as well as 26 ortho cases and 8 at another government hospital.  We saw over 115 patients in the clinics and some patients in the hallways of the hospital and the hotel.  Our audiology team did about 100 evaluations including for all of the children at the school for the deaf.

We met with anesthesia residents, ENT residents, and anesthesia students.  We gave lectures, visited other hospitals and met with many people in the country who are trying to improve the care.  Most of the team went to the famous Fistula hospital in Addis this afternoon to see the amazing work they are doing there with women who suffer from complications of prolonged labor.  Although this problem is largely unheard of in the US, it is prevalent and devastating throughout the developing world.

Many of us leave tonight, some tomorrow morning, others tomorrow evening.

We will all sleep well on the plane!  We are already planning out next two trips.