Having been
here ten years in a referral hospital, many interesting cases come to us.
Sadly, several are in the late stages of their diseases and only palliation can
be provided. The patients are poor and they first try to obtain a cure from a
local healer. Only when in their final stages do they come to the hospital.
A malnourished child was brought in with his
left cheek and jaw necrotic. After being fed he looked and acted stronger. However,
he needs the dead cheek and jaw to be removed and his rehabilitation will be
far from perfect.
The
traditional Muslim custom of the woman wearing a long scarf can become an
unfortunate liability with the use of motorcycles. We are seeing accidents in
which the scarf gets caught in the wheel and results in strangulation. Such a
case presented recently in a woman with a total transection of her trachea from
her larynx. Only an emergency tracheostomy saved her life. Her trachea was sewn
back to her larynx and now she has a fair air passage. However, both vocal
cords are not moving and her nerves may have also been transected with her
injury. We are hoping at least one vocal cord will recover.
Because
there is minimal dental care, we continue to see many cases of deep neck
abscesses from infected teeth.
The custom
of drying out groundnuts and corn (maize) on the compound floor allows crawling
infants to swallow such items and these young children present choking with
food stuck in their trachea.
We have used our donated facial reconstruction
plates on several patients with multiple rib fractures and they did well.
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| Malnourished child with necrosis of left cheek and jaw. |
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New form of Transportation |
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| Poor, recovered child whose care was paid for by her doctors |
