My 1st Week of Placement in Kenya

Hi everyone

So I completed my first week on placement in Rongo, Homa Bay and surrounding areas. It was a week full of eye opening experiences. On the 1^st day of placement, I was able to use my skills from ErinOaks Children’s Centre to diagnosis a dislocated hip for a 15year old boy. Over in Kenya, physiotherapist are allowed to give their clinical impression (diagnosis) to clients/patients. In Canada, we can’t really give a true diagnosis. Also, Kenyan PT’s can cast fractures and club foot (a common foot deformity seen in infants). When I was in Homa Bay (2^nd day), I assisted in casting for club foot. Unfortunately, surgery is very expensive for many people over here, where as in Canada, many people would just have a surgery to correct the club foot.

It can be very frustrating, unfortunately, when we come across people who can’t afford simple things like an operation to fix a fracture. Since this is a common problem, they use a device here that will pull the legs (or arm) apart while the fracture is new until the bones meet. We came a cross a man who was walking on a one year old compound fracture of a femur. When he brought us his recent x-ray (2 weeks old), this fracture was still separated.

Another issue that we’ve been running into is individuals coming to the clinic asking for money, rather than help for their disability. Over here, the white man is called “Muzungo”. We commonly hear people yelling this while we walk down the street or when we’re in the Matatus. Anyways, people in the towns have been hearing that the “Muzungos” have come and this has brought many to the clinic with the hopes to get some financial assistance.

We have also come across spina bifida (another very common problem). In Homa Bay hospital there as a 6 day old infant that was waiting sponsoring so he could be taken to Nairobi or Kisumu for surgery. The protrusion of the dura (the area around the spinal cord) was fully exposed.. which is scary since this child was at a crazy high risk for meningitis.

On a happier note, the food here is great. I also got a chance to visit another city/town/district called Magori. Over there they had a hospital as well and we stayed in the hospital guest house (which had running water and flushing toilets .. very exciting).

I was also going to post pictures today, but I changed my memory card and completely forgot to bring the full card.. so…I will try again in 2 weeks. I might not jump onto the internet next weekend. Getting to Kisii (the city).. can be difficult on the Matatus.

Miss you guys a lot..

Love

noreen