Hospitals and Shawarma’s

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Today we finished our overnight outreach in Takoradi. We were in a village close by where they spoke Ahonte, similar to Twi. I was on visual acuity and everything seemed to be going as normal until this one lady. I called for the next patient and she struggled to walk over to the chair. I walked over to help her and noticed that there was a certain strain in her breathing. She sat down and she was in some sort of pain. Tears were flowing down her face and then I saw her clutch her chest. Thats when I switched into EMT mode. She was about 70 years old and spoke zero english. John, our usual translator wasn’t there at the time and so I looked to the line of patients and looked for the most likely candidate for knowing English. I saw a man in his 30’s wearing western clothes. I pointed to him and called him over. He just pointed at himself and looked around. “Yes you!” I said. He came over and I tried to get him to ask her if it felt like someone was standing on her chest and some other questions but he couldn’t follow along with my english very well. While I was trying to talk to this man Jerry had gone into the church and asked for one of the local volunteers to translate. We then got Richard to come out as well. I knew she was having a heard attack. Richard and I got her down onto the ground in the recover position to ease some of the discomfort. At this point everyone was looking at us and Ernest and a few of the other local volunteers were around us. Richard was great to have. We knew that she needed to get to a hospital and take Aspirin. There was a local pharmacy close by and we sent someone to go get some but they took too long so we decided to take her straight to the hospital. 

I wonder where those wheelchairs were when we got there. They have wheels!

We got a taxi and Richard, one of the local organizers and myself went with. Richard and I went because we knew that if she went into cardiac arrest that the taxi driver and the organizer didn’t know CPR. Luckily it never got to that point and we made it to the hospital about 20 minutes away with no problems. But it was just our luck that the taxi we chose just had to get gas on the way to the hospital. I don't know if he would have ran out but it looked pretty low. But still, this lady is having a heart attack! We don’t have time to stop! Anyways we make it to the hospital and I run over to a nurse and tell her what happened. She tells us to put her in the wheelchair and take her to the back to see the doctor. I turned around expecting to see a wheelchair but what I found was a plastic chair with wheels, 3 wheels exactly. I wish I would have taken a picture of the wheelchair we used, it was sketchy but I wasn’t surprised, it’s Africa. We roll her to the back and speak to another nurse that tells us that we need to fill out a form before we can see a doctor. I told her that we didn’t have time for that, this women was possibly having a heart attack. I went and knocked on the doctors door went in and told him the situation. He met us in the main ward and helped us get her some Aspirin. Initially the nurses said that they didn’t have any Aspirin left. Urgency definitely was not at the forefronts of anyones mind in that hospital. Fortunately she had improved on the drive over. Her pain had decreased and she had calmed down. A few minutes later Aspirin had been found. It was some dissolvable one and the nurse brought it in inside a small medicine bottle with some water. Then she just held it…watching it while it slowly fizzled. The doctor insisted that she shake the bottle a little to help it dissolve but there was no lid so she just swished it around, barely. At that rate it would have taken 5 minutes to dissolve. We needed a lid or something to shake it up with. The doctor asked where the lid had gone and she replied that she had thrown it away (face palm!). Eventually another lid was found and we shook it up and gave it to her. The doctor thanked us and told us we could leave. After we left Richard and I talked about what we thought it might be. Her pain had gone down on the ride over and so had her pulse. So we think that it was just unstable Angina and not a full heart attack which is really good for her case. I’m scared to think about what would have happened if it was a myocardial infarction. I mean the hospital barely had Aspirin. I doubt they have any equipment or medication to treat heart attacks. She could very well have died, who knows. What’s important is that she is fine now and the last I heard she was doing better. They were going to keep her at the hospital overnight for evaluation. When I came on this trip I thought that maybe I would get to use some of my EMT training but never did I think that it would be cardiac related and in such a dramatic fashion. Defiantly an exciting experience and one for the books. 

Wache! Cooked rice and beans with spicy gravy on top.
Oh and a hardboiled egg to go with.

The rest of the day fails in comparison but I will try to make it sound some what interesting. I had some pretty good food on this trip. I was the first week that I actually had breakfast every day. I am so used to eating a couple pieces of cold toast that I felt so full after eating breakfast 4 days in a row. I had wache, eggs and bofrote nearly every morning. Wache is rice, black beans and spicy sauce. bofrote’s are sort of donuts. They are really good! I also tried some Ghanian porridge. It looks disgusting but has a very unique taste. It has sort of a cider taste to it as well as a kick of ginger at the end and its served warm. John and BB had it every morning. Its made of a grain called millet I think as well as some root that they use as a spice, they call it soap as its nickname. 

One of the most interesting things I have ever tasted. Surprisingly tasteful. 

Breakfast time. Thats BB on the left, then Austin, John and myself.

On our way back from Takoradi we stopped and got some food. We first stopped at a place that sold rice and chicken (the usual). I was holding out for our second stop in an hour but then I found out what BB was having and really wanted some. He had a egg sandwich and hot chocolate! It was actually really good. It was like an omelet sandwich. There was lettuce, onions and spices inside the egg. The hot chocolate was made with sweetened condensed milk, hot chocolate mix, sugar and hot water. Then she poured it into a clear bag and thats how you drink it. I actually don't think I have ever mentioned this but everyone drinks water out of bags here. Little 500ml pouches that you can can buy literally anywhere for nothing; 10 pesewas which is less than 3 cents. You can buy huge bundles of these pouches from a lot of the stores. Its 30L of water for 3 cedis. I personally have been getting the bottled water for the past couple weeks and prefer it over the bagged water. I buy 1 or 2 large two litre bottles a day for a few cedi. It is more expensive in the long run but its much easier to carry around than pouches that easily break and are hard to keep cold. The second place we stopped at for food was this outdoor restaurant with live music and everything. We got shawarma’s! Ok well they weren’t true shawarma’s but they were still pretty good. There were no pickled beats or peppers or magic garlic sauce but instead they just put lettuce, chicken, onions, ketchup and mayonnaise. Still worth it but definitely does not compare to home. What was funny about this place was what they used to wrap the shawarma’s in…printer paper! Haha no joke the literally had a bundle of printer paper that they would use to wrap them with. Oh Africa your ingenuity never ceases to amaze me.

A little ink and I would have been set.

We got back at the Telecentre tonight around 11pm. Everyone was still up so it was great to see everyone. We talked all about what had happened this past week. I love it here. I love the people, the culture, most of the food haha, and especially the people I am here with. I couldn’t have asked for a better. We have so much fun! As we speak Austin is fighting to get through another episode of diarrhea whilst trying to kill a centipede in the bathroom that is looming near. Good times.