Taiama visit

I was at Taiama healthcenter this last Friday for a follow-up visit from the previous Friday. The clinic has been so busy lately with graduates from the program! To be a graduate means the child has reached his or her ideal weight-for-height of over 85% for two consecutive visits. We graduated five children this past Friday, and the Friday two weeks from now we are expected to graduate about twenty children! Lucy and I are so excited!

Even though the clinic was so successful this visit, it was also a sorrowful visit. I found out that two of our patients died in just a one week time period. They were two little girls named Isata and Elizabeth. Isata contracted malaria along with it came a very high fever that they were unable to break, and Elizabeth passed away in the Bo Government Hospital from typhoid. When I first heard the news, I didn't know how to react. I had seen these two babies a week ago and they were improving on the supplement. Now they are just gone. I was able to go with Lucy and express our sympathy to the mothers. It really is a numbing experience. I mean, you know the high death mortality rates in Sierra Leone, but the numbers don't become people until you actually experience the deaths. The longer I am here, the more I realize the true horror of the state of medical care this country is in. These were just two children we heard about that were connected to the Taiama clinic. What is it like in the outlying villages that have absolutely no access to any type of healthcare? How are we letting this injustice continue? Please pray for the families of these two little girls and the other families that have lost children from preventable deaths.