screening day

 February 1, 2012

Screening day, in many ways, marked the beginning of our service.  Thousands of people from all over the country (and neighboring countries) travel to see Mercy Ships, many of whom are relying on us as their last hope.  Some come with stomach aches or general medical problems which we cannot help - we must limit ourselves to surgical problems only.  Some surgical problems we do not have the capacity to responsibly treat. We are also not doing orthopedic surgeries this outreach as there is not enough time to allow for proper healing and follow-up. As you can imagine, the hardest part is turning people away.

A lot of planning and organization went into screening day, and nearly everyone from the ship was needed to help.  Many prayers were made before and during the day for safety and for the patients who come to be ones that we can help. Security has to be very tight, and things have to stay very controlled; it is easy for a situation like this to spiral out of control quickly. We used the national stadium in Lomé as our screening site.  Security set up at 2 PM the day before, then people started lining up. A crew of people began pre-pre screening the line throughout the night. Breakfast was served at 03:30am, we met our group at 04:15, and we left by 04:40 in a convoy of landrovers to the stadium.  We drove through the dark, 9 people per car, in the safety of our caravan with the occasional communications among drivers through the radio. I felt that I was part of some undercover mission.

Pre-screening commenced in the early morning hours to allow people through the first gate, then they are screened by nurses through the second gate.  After that, they went to history taking, which was my station. We took vital signs, their weights, and worked to get the health histories with interpreters (15 nurses took about 1000 histories).  This was definitely a challenge due to language barriers not only between us and the patients, but also sometimes between us and our translators.  It was very exhausting, time-consuming, and energy-consuming to not only try to explain what each disease or problem is to our patients, but also to the interpreters. It was difficult to know whether it was being translated correctly, and often it was not judging by the responses :)

- Do you have chest pain or shortness of breath?

- Yes, when I exercise or work hard (or when I'm

angry) I have shortness of breath and my chest hurts.

- Have you ever had surgery?
- Yes, I saw a doctor two weeks ago and they told me to come here.
- What surgery have you had?
- (confused look)
- (me, to the translator): do you know what a surgery is?
- (response): Is it not a doctor?

etc etc etc...

Then they went to their respective surgical team rooms (general, plastics, or maxillo-facial) for further physicals. They also got biopsies of tumors because we don't operate on malignancies since we cannot provide chemo or radiation or any further management of their condition. They get blood drawn, and their information taken and recorded again.  If they make it past all of that then they get their surgery time sorted by acuity, their "before" picture taken, then re-explained all of the consents and when to come and to make sure they have enough money to get home after surgery.

There are teams of people that escort from each station to the next (also to the prayer station or to the exit, depending on their condition), teams that provide water and sandwiches to everyone, that pray with people we can't help, that play with the children, etc... A very very long day and extremely well-organized. My group worked all day and got home around 1730. Some got back later.


I only regret not being able to see the masses of people outside while taking histories and to delight with the patients when they were cleared for surgery. The line seemed to go on forever in our station, but I would have really loved to get a feeling for the whole process.  It was only afterwards, looking at pictures and hearing stories from all the crew, that I really realized how massive and impactful the day really was. So many lives were touched. Our goal was to have a positive impact on all who came even if we could not provide surgery for them, whether it be through a loving touch they may have not received for years, looking them in the eye as equals, or praying for their strength and God's presence if we could not help them. I think that overall, the Mercy Ships crew did an excellent job of this. I am so thankful to have been a part of this day.

Here are just some adorable kids who came through the line. Just to make you (and me) smile.