Clinic Day!

Before leaving Fort Portal, we visited 3 different pharmacies to get medicine for the clinic because each pharmacy did not have all of the medications that we needed. Many people from home (US) donated money for meds (Thanks Silvia) so we pooled our money together and we bought tons of medications for: Elephantiasis, worms, epilepsy, asthma, eye infections, and malaria. I’m sure there were others but those were the major ones. At our first stop we probably spent $1 mil schillings…or $500 and walked out with 2 big boxes of meds!

Clinic Day was awesome. Approx. 300 people came from all over the region to see the doc for their ailments. This is a mobile clinic and attempts to treat all of the ailments listed above. Once we arrived, we began sorting the meds and separating the doses into envelopes for the patients. We also had an eye glass station…we had brought approx. 125 reading glasses that we bought at the dollar store. Soooo many people were lined up for glasses. We had various magnifying strengths from 1.25-3.5. We had each one try on a pair of glasses and then try to read and they would tell us if they needed stronger or weaker…of course with the help of an interpreter. We found that when they thought they needed stronger they actually wanted weaker so we basically did the opposite of what they asked for. The reaction of them trying to read the book was priceless and they looked so smart!

I spent the majority of the afternoon helping Milton with the individuals that were experiencing leg pain from Elephantiasis and various ailments. I was counting pills, putting them in envelopes and sweating in the sun.