Medicine in Ktown: His Name is on the Gate

I have avoided writing about the hospital until now. Frankly, there is too much, and I have not yet figured out how to break it up in to small amounts that are both easy and coherent to write, and enjoyable to read. The sheer volume of material makes it a daunting task—the people and personalities, the patients and families, and the actual medical care. And also, I’m worried about not doing justice to the reality of the hospital.

That being said, I think the best place to start is with a quote from Dan, the main OB/GYN (and everything else) surgeon. I was able to spend a little time with him before he left for 3 months of reprieve in the States (and I look forward to working with him more in August). Despite the fact that there are many other dynamic people involved in the hospital that are making it what it is, most would say that it was Dan’s sense of vision and his personality that really got the hospital going. When he arrived in Ktown four years ago, the land was purchased, but the supplies need to have an actual, functioning hospital were nowhere to be found.

So over dinner, during my first week here in Ktown, Dan said something that has stuck with me. In talking about the needs present in Ktown, and the bizarre cases that come through the hospital, he said, “We are doing things that we have no business doing [but do because there is no one else to do it], and we have an incredible success rate. It’s like God keeps us from making big mistakes, because His reputation is on the line and His Name is on the gate” (not a verbatim quote…but close as I can remember).
And honestly, I think that is about as good as anyone could sum it up. We are in a city that is about 6 hours drive from the capital city, Btown. The capital is the only place where any level of advanced care can be provided (and even that care is minimal in many respects). Though any of us could easily afford the trip to Btown, and we could probably afford to pay the medical bill out of pocket, this is not the reality for the majority of Ms, who live on $2/day. Very rarely do Westerners factor finances in life-and-death decisions, but here it is an unfortunate reality.
The Hospital offers affordable, high-quality care. And the medical personal here bend-over-backwards to help the women and children that are in our care. Sometimes that means doing things that they never done before—something their training did not prepare them for. Dan also said that the list of surgical cases for each month reads like the complete list of OB/GYN emergencies found in his med-school textbooks—things that are just not seen in the States on a regular basis. There are a lot of cases that just stretch everyone to the max of our abilities. And this is why we pray before every surgical case.
Far from being people with a Messiah-complex (though we certainly are here for the Messiah), the staff approaches their work humbly, often desperately pleading with the Lord to protect the patient. And though death is a more-accepted reality here (you do eventually run out of resources here), the work is not approached half-heartedly, or fatalistically—as if the patient will die anyway, so we can just attempt some surgery out of our league. The staff here is constantly researching procedures and conditions, often spending hours reading in the evening after working all day at the hospital. They have a wide network of people they consult in the States. Speaking personally, I’ve never before read so much, with as much intensity, concerning the drugs I give and the procedures I perform. This position has called me to a higher level of understanding and practice, and I’ve responded with a great deal of study, research, and humility.
Because His Name is on the gate, the Lord is gracious to us and to our patients. The number of lives saved and touched by the hospital is enormous. As B, the pediatrician, said, “It blows me away that premature, less-than-2-pound babies stand a chance here because of our simple protocols and procedures.” (Our incubators are wood boxes with plexi-glass and a series of light-bulbs. To help premie babies breathe, we tape their chest up and suspend it from the top of the incubator, which prevents their immature cartilage from collapsing in on their lungs. We make up our own special tube feeds for the premature babies.) Very affordable prenatal care and consultation are provided to about 50 women every day. As many as 60 children come for vaccinations and consultations every day. And we have a steady stream of emergency surgeries that prevent fetal and maternal death.
So, we continue to build, to plan, to learn, and to serve. The hospital is bustling with changes being made, supplies arriving, new personnel arriving, and new buildings going up. How can we do less? His Name is on the gate.