The numbers do and don’t tell the whole story
Since we have returned from the trip, Dean has been diligently and almost obsessively crunching the numbers from the stacks of patient registration cards. The facts are impressive in terms of what was accomplished – and I’ll summarize them below – but what was MORE impressive was the act of entering each row of information and re-living the memories of so many of the people who came to see us. Each row of the nearly 3000 people – name, sex, age, village, diagnosis and treatment – was a live human being who made it a priority to get to us for treatment, for encouragement, for contact with a stranger from a far away land, for love. As we struggled to read the handwriting or interpret the information, we were simultaneously amused and haunted by memories of names, maladies, faces and needs.
So here are the facts, and following the facts are the faces as captured by our mission photographer, Bill Shugarts. You can’t look at one without looking at the other!
- Total patients: 2778
- Day 1=615
- Day 2=801
- Day 3=1272!
- Patients by Age
- 15% under age 5
- 29% between age 5 and 16
- 51% adult over age 16
- The highest concentration of illness was not malaria or AIDS. 18.5% of the ailments were diagnosed as gastro illnesses arising out of parasite infection and 15.68% were diagnosed as upper respiratory infections or pneumonia. Positive HIV results represented 6.34% of those tested.
- Malaria and AIDS get all the media attention, but the REAL killers are ailments from lack of clean water and pneumonia/respiratory infection – all very preventable!!!
- 137 people received dental services; over 140 teeth were extracted by 2 dentists
