{"id":23,"date":"2015-09-25T22:04:50","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T22:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/?page_id=23"},"modified":"2015-09-25T22:04:50","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T22:04:50","slug":"african-healthcare-its-ups-and-downs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/african-healthcare-its-ups-and-downs\/","title":{"rendered":"African Healthcare: Its Ups and Downs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The whole crew at Solar Sister!<\/p><\/div>\n

As a Public Health Science major, it was an exciting prospect to be spending my summer with not one, but two social enterprises that focus on the health and well-being of communities. Working with BanaPads and Solar Sister also excited me because of my interest in women\u2019s health. Throughout the process of preparing for the field-work, I became more and more restless to get out to the field and see how exactly how these enterprises function and of course capture it all on film. <\/span>However, an unexpected series of events led to me to see health from a much different perspective in the field. It is this perspective that gave me the ability to see with more clarity exactly how my time in Africa fits into the scope of what I want to pursue in the future. About two weeks from the end of the trip I began to feel fatigued, but the days following would show me that I was much more than fatigued and I ended up needing to go to the hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I saw quite a bit of Tanzania from this seat, and this is where I did the most reflection.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the first hospital I went to\u00a0after I began to lose consciousness during a blood draw, the phlebotomist thought it appropriate to try to continue the blood draw even after I told him I felt faint and wanted him to stop. After I did pass out, I was carted over to a bed only to be told that they had no IV bags as their pharmacy was closed, the pharmacist was gone, and I would have to find my way to another hospital. Only after my partner, Paris, asked (or rather,<\/span> demanded) that the doctor himself drive us to another hospital did he agree. The situation was likely weighing on his conscious as during a later visit, the same doctor showed me a picture of his daughter whom I reminded him of.<\/span> Upon my arrival to the next hospital, I was put in a bed with blood-stained sheets. When they put in my IV, they did nothing when I started to bleed from the site of insertion. They wanted to collect a blood sample from me and on our way to the lab down the hall, the nurse was pulling the IV bag holder too fast for me to keep up. I was essentially being dragged by the port that she had carelessly put in my wrist earlier that evening to maintain their schedule. After she took the sample and dragged me back to my room, she pumped a fever-reducer directly into my IV port which is an incredibly painful process and defeats the purpose of using an IV. I received more concern from the mother and aunt of the girl that I was sharing a room with than any of the medical staff at the hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

In all, I went to five different hospitals and had about eight separate visits spread between them. After coming out of the field a few days early and going to my doctor, the results of the tests she ordered told me that I had multiple bacterial infections including <\/span>E. coli <\/span><\/i>as well as a viral infection which likely occurred because of how immunocompromised I was. Even after finding out this news, it didn\u2019t have much shock factor for me the way it did with my family, friends, and partners in the field. Me getting sick was no one\u2019s fault; being a place you\u2019ve never been before for nearly two months is likely to end in you getting sick at some point. What did shock<\/span> me was the distinct lack of any kind of socially conscious, compassionate, or ethical medical care. I found this so shocking<\/span> because \u00a0in both Uganda and Tanzania, I had found places of compassion and community.[pullquote]\u00a0in both Uganda and Tanzania, I had found places of compassion and community[\/pullquote]<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/span>In fact, upon hearing that I was ill, I received multiple Facebook messages from the folks at BanaPads including check-ins after I left Africa. Fatma, the Tanzania country manager for Solar Sister, visited me multiple times before she had to leave for a business trip up until the very night before her flight. Even the<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The owners of the guesthouse made me a special meal to help me get better and even shaped it into a caterpillar!<\/p><\/div>\n

owners of the guesthouse we stayed at in Uganda tracked Serena and I down when they found out that I was in the hospital even though they hardly knew us. These are courtesies that anyone would be hard-pressed to find in America<\/span>, yet people who only knew me for a week came to check on me and bring me whatever I needed. I can even recall a time that I did not feel well at an outdoor shopping center in Tanzania. I went to take a rest and sat on the curb outside a store and multiple people came to check on me and invited me to sit with them and their families if I wasn\u2019t feeling well or offered to call someone for me. The kindness I was shown made me actually realize the level of interpersonal sterility \u00a0and distance that Americans have managed to achieve (a discussion for another day), but more than anything it made me feel at home in Africa and\u00a0it left me shocked to not see this same compassion in the realm of healthcare where it\u2019s arguably needed most.<\/span><\/p>\n

[pullquote]it left me shocked to not see this same compassion in the realm of healthcare where it\u2019s arguably needed most<\/b>\u00a0<\/span>[\/pullquote]<\/b><\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My qualms were settled (only slightly) when I encountered a doctor from the UK at a British expat hospital in Kampala, Uganda. When I stepped into the exam room, I was confused when she asked me about my symptoms rather than immediately examining me and taking my temperature as was characteristic with my many other hospital visits. She also inquired about what had brought a young American to Uganda. When I explained the fellowship and my project, she was fascinated and provided me with her contact information. She works with the Aga Khan Foundation which promotes development through building infrastructure, but not imposing harsh interventions that purged-almost discouraged-\u00a0comp<\/span>assion and social-consciousness out of the healthcare system as had been the case with three of the five hospitals I visited. Foreign interventions had told these African hospitals what they believed the solution to the problems in their healthcare system was, but instead just inoculated them with slew of new issues. <\/span><\/span>Many of these \u201csolutions\u201d encouraged speedier exams which actually made the process slower because doctors were not collecting the information they needed which led to misdiagnoses and in turn, they would have to repeat the process again. Dr. Tazim is fighting this counter intuitive type of intervention and helping to build infrastructure to allow East African hospitals the opportunity to improve in a way best suited to the needs of the community they serve. This in turn allows them to bring their culture of compassion back into hospitals and other types of healthcare. Thi<\/span>s doctor is an example of how to best go about improving the East African healthcare system, and I\u2019d like to pursue a similar line of work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, improved healthcare systems that incorporate compassion and social-consciousness helps to facilitate the achievement of the goals of organizations like BanaPads and Solar Sister\u00a0[pullquote]improved healthcare systems that incorporate compassion and social-consciousness helps to facilitate the achievement of the goals of organizations like BanaPads and Solar Sister[\/pullquote]<\/b>\u00a0who strive for the health and well-being of their communities. When the healthcare system functions properly, health education becomes more important,\u00a0expanding\u00a0opportunities for organizations that center on social benefit. This also allows for the health of women to become more important which is essential as the Champions, sales agents, f<\/span>or BanaPads and Solar Sister Entrepreneurs are breadwinners in their homes and the ability to work is paramount. Really everyone wins when they have access to effective and compassionate healthcare regardless of where they are or what their circumstances may be. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Children<\/a>

Children at a Ugandan school took a picture who took silly pictures with me and are the beneficiaries of an improved healthcare system<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s easy to forget, but the experience I had happens every single day here in America. We are not immune to the issue of inadequate health care. It\u2019s a worldwide problem affecting both high resource and low resource settings. It\u2019s a complicated and intimidating issue, but just as Dr. Tazim from Uganda shows, there are ways of effectively and ethically going about it ensuring equal and quality healthcare for all communities around the globe<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a Public Health Science major, it was an exciting prospect to be spending my summer with not one, but two social enterprises that focus on the health and well-being of communities. Working with BanaPads and Solar Sister also excited … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":564,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-23","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/564"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/shelby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}