Mphonde Medical Outreach

Children lining up outside Calvary Chapel Malawi

church plant building, Mphonde

Mphonde is a small village about an hour drive outside Lilongwe. It was chosen as medical outreach site as Calvary Chapel Malawi has a church plant established there. It is also one of the sites selected by Water Missions International and the Foster Friess Foundation for its water purification and safe sewage initiative and community development. It is a village of about 1000 and along with 10 other surrounding villages comprises an isolated community. Children have to walk for several kilometers, including crossing a small river, to get to school. There is no access to medical services, clean water, electricity or even village market.

Timothy, a youth worker with Calvary Chapel, Malawi helped with organization and triage of patients.

Clinic was set up inside the church building. Patients lined up outside and then rotated through the building. Tom, a pastor with Calvary Chapel, Malawi shared scripture and the Gospel with patients while they waited.

Many of these villagers had never been to any sort of clinic and didn't quite know what to expect.

We held a general clinic. We treated infectious diseases included diagnosing new cases of HIV and TB. These patients were referred to the nearest government office for CD4 testing and ARV/TB treatment. We cleaned and bandaged wounds, treated hypertension, dewormed and treated Schistosomiasis. We treated close to 300 patients and have plans for monthly followup starting this February.

A team of 4 American nurses accompanied us on the trip. They preserved all day despite sapping heat, over-crowding and seemingly unlimited number of patients. I think our next clinic will be outside under a tree!

Toward the end the clinic I went out around the village. These girls were coming up from the small river. They were a bit scared at first. I don't know what was in the small plastic bottle.

At the bottom of the hill is small river. It was way down as it was the end of dry season. Many of our patients had acquired schistosomiasis from this water. It was also their source of drinking water. The oxen for this ox cart had broken free leaving the owners trying to free it from the stones in the river bed. I helped them pull it out and walked back to clinic while the owners reattached the oxen. About 30 minutes later a mother frantically ran up to the clinic carrying her 3 year old girl. The ox cart wheel had run over her right thigh and broke her right femur. As we were close to leaving we loaded mom and child into our car and brought them back to ABC. Because the xray demonstrated a compound fracture and surgery was not available, she had to be placed in a traction cast for 6 weeks at the central hospital. The moral of the lesson is leave the ox cart in the river!