Hey Statesiders,

Things are winding down here. There has been a bit of a down turn in the number of patients showing up the past few days, so its been a little easier on us. Theories abound from less of the word going out to the villages since Azariah’s death to a new Gov’t program where the poor are given a green card allowing them to go to private docs for care for free and the gov’t pays the doc….kind of like our Medicare…..a good thing!!! That would be ideal if it would work properly. Apparently, the program was flooded with hysterectomies, so they omitted hysterectomy coverage from the deal……typical political response…..not only here.

One of the problems is the physical plant here… St. Mary’s Mission Hospital complex, built by the Brits about 1900, is deteriorating what with no $$$$ for up keep. We have donors and grant programs, but no one will pay fore “bricks and mortar”, so the place looks like hell….mold growing black up the sides of buildings, inside & out, plaster falling off, wooden window frames rotting….but what do we expect after 110 years . It’s fun to imagine the glory of the compound when the Brits ruled. You know that everything was spit & polish, gardens, top flight repair and up keep. Sad to see it now.

I asked Manohar, one of Azariah’s (now John Mark’s aides) to come up with some numbers for cleaning up the OP (out patient building)…. fix the roof, plaster the holes in the walls, repaint, repair rotted windows and doorways, update and adequate lighting, new, better exam tables, upgrade and clean-up the bathroom (you have to apologize to your shoes when you go in there, and be sure you don’t drop anything of value). We can’t attract decent Specialist Docs to work there in that hell-hole, nor do the patients want to come there. It certainly does not inspire confidence in ones care to see the place. Manohar said that the whole OP could be restored nicely for about $10K, and another $5K for new medical furniture (exam tables, lights,etc.). What we really need here is a full-time specialists the patients can rely on and respect…. probably a good Ob-Gyn for start a Women’s health…. a salary of about $15-20K/year.

One of the reasons the lights go out so often is that the main wiring coming into the hospital and distributed to the various parts is a rats nest of wire-jumble which shorts out fairly frequently. Manohar had an electrician look at it for an estimate. He threw up his hands and said “Wow! What a mess!”. We will get that fixed next week after we leave cuz the power will have to go off for 2 days to rewire and put in a modern circuit-breaker system. Dr. Naomi, the resident GP, here right now will need to discharge all the patients we’ve operated on safely first.

I hope to get over to the Leprosy Village this AM if the case load is light, to see what the problems are there. I gather the rats are getting into some of the homes and nibbling on the lepers’ insensate fingers and toes. Not tolerable! Gotta go to breakfast, then to the OR before 8AM…….Keep the faith……later….Geo.