Monday the 6th turned out to be a quite amazing day. It started as a normal busy Monday lots of patients waiting to be seen. At noon at went to government hospital and scrubbed a hernia repair with Mike. After surgery we saw more people at clinic and then I popped pop corn for dinner. Then a truck (a big truck) pulled up to clinic filled with 13 persons injured when a packed land Rover flipped after blowing a tire. There were smashed in faces Broken bones and other trauma. The whole staff went to work everyone pitching in as best they could. Our observation room was already filled so we had mats everywhere to lay patients on. Only one community health worker was on duty and I knew we were in trouble but within a short time many of the workers came in to interpret and give medical assistance (I love those guys). It was sure great having Mike Stick working with us. I evaluated abcs airway breathing circulation then I started setting and splinting fractures. In several hours all patients were stable. Around 11:30 I said to Mike if no one drifts off to death tonight it would be something. I then got called to do a D&C on woman with a retained placenta who had walked 2-3 hours to clinic after miscarriage of a 5 month gestation pregnancy. At 12:30 I went to bed and slept like a baby. On Tuesday AM all the patients from wreck were doing fine as were all the patients in our packed observation room. I was so grateful to our mighty God for blessing us so. I was filled with joy, joy, joy. What a thrill when we are blessed with patients getting better. I personally take no pride in these things I just thank God for His blessing. God lets us be used to help others. Today I said to Dennis and Pritty that it is a good thing In Deed and Truth Ministries is here cause where would all these people go for health care. No pride we are just thankful we can be used. I told Mike the surgeon that to be useful God had to send us where we could be used. We were expendible in the USA but here we are useful. Thank you Lord and thank you Sabet and Suzy in all you sacrificed to get this place going.
Category Archives: Medical Clinic
Car Accident in Tonj
Our clinic is very busy since last evening after 13 patients were brought to our clinic yesterday after they had an accident. The car was coming from Rumbek to Tonj and was hired by a man named Ding. The car had a puncture and as the driver tried to control it, it overturned several times. This happened in Morol Akech in Northern Barl Ghazal near Mapel approximate 160 miles away from Tonj. These young men who were riding in the car were hired to come to Tonj to make bricks.
Our medical staff of Dr. Tom, Dennis, Margaret, Stephanie, Pritty together with Dr. Stick were alerted and they all joined hands to save these lives. Praise God for our community health workers because when they heard about the accident they came as fast as they could to give hand. Two of these patients were badly injured, one had a head fracture and the other one his hand is badly injured. Albino and I went to pray for these patients and shared shortly about God and some of them agreed to be coming to our church every Sunday and said they trust God because saved them from the accident. Five of them need to be transferred to Wau for further treatments but the rest might be discharged today or tomorrow. Please pray for these young men to be healed and to accept Jesus as their personal savior.
We thank God no one died but there is one young man missing because they were fourteen in number. Pray for these young men to be healed and the missing one to be found. Also we have surgeries going on with Dr Stick and the team, please pray for God’s divine intervention in these two areas.
God bless you for your generous contribution and for praying for this ministry.
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” – Ephesians 2:10
– The Tonj Team
Praise Report
An adult patient was brought to our clinic on 31st January 2012. His history was that he had conversion the previous night and he could not walk and talk. Joseph Madit (50 years old) was diagnosed of infection of the brain and stroke. On his right side of the body he had a paralysis. The next day (1st February) the patient regained strength but he had a slurred speech. There was improvement of fingers and toes because they could move. Our doctors Dennis, Stick and Tom prayed for him and continued giving him treatments. On 2nd February Joseph could lift his hand even to greet people. The following day his strength was full and he could walk but his speech was still slurred. By that time the doctors tried to figure out what caused stroke, because his heart and blood pressure was okay. They all agreed to discharge him the next day but on treatment.
They advised him to come back today for checkup. During his time of discharge he could walk and also communicate but you have to repeat over and over again. Our doctors were very happy with his recovery. Today I went to see him and we prayed together with Dr. Dennis and he was talking and he understands what you tell him. The doctors will be reviewing him every week.
“With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible” – Matthew 19:26
May his name be glorified. Amen.
1st Surgery in Tonj!
It was on a Monday evening when Kiir Mayen (7 years) was brought to our clinic by his parents. The boy had two Hernias in both sides. The boy had to spent the night in the clinic so as to prepare him for surgery the following day. This is because he had to fast for at least six hours for the surgery to be performed. Albino our compound manager together with our medical staffs went and prayed together with the boy and his parents.
On Tuesday at around 10.00 a.m the medical staffs together with the Surgeon Dr. Stick went to the hospital and started preparing for the surgery. They called the boy’s parents who were already there prayed with them and then they signed the consent form.
There was a team of 7: the Surgeon Dr Stick, our Nurse Margaret and Dennis the Clinical Officer and Albino compound Manager. The rest were Sudanese staffs one of them being from the Government Hospital. They all joined hands together before surgery and prayed.
The Surgery kicked off at around 11:30 a.m and took four and a half hours and it was successful. After the surgery the boy was taken outside and you could see the joy from the family. Albino prayed for them again.
The Surgeon said he got supported and said it was a joy to work with the team. The boy was brought back to our clinic and after an hour he was awake. Today in the Morning I went to see him and and he is doing much better. The mother(Abak Akuar) said that she is glad that her son is getting better. I ask her if she knows Jesus of which she replied she doesn’t know anything about God. I encouraged her, shared shortly about God. She accepted Jesus as her personal savior and told me she is Going to share with her husband finally I prayed for them. Lets continue to pray for healing for this boy, and for Abak who gave her life to Jesus and also for her husband to accept Christ.
Thank you all for your continued support and for praying for this community.
“The King will reply, I tell you the truth whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” – Matthew 25:40
Craziness – Help Needed!
It is Christmas and every year we close our clinic for 3 weeks to allow our Kenyan staff to return to their families for the Christmas holiday. It is the only time in the year the clinic is closed and it is a hard decision for us. The last three years we have remained in Sudan over Christmas, operating the clinic on an emergency basis. But that has proved quite challenging with minimal national staff and only our missionary doctor Tom and misisonary midwife Stephanie to attend to patients. All our Kenyan staff return home today and therefore we ask for prayer for the clinic over the next three weeks. In the last 24 hours we have been slammed with patients and 6 births in 20 hours. Here’s how it looked, we only had one midwife as Stephanie had not yet returned from her R & R, she worked more than 24 hours without a break and with closing for Christmas we know the community will be affected:
6 mothers in labor between 10pm and 7pm. The first delivery was successful-a healthy child with good scores at 10pm. At 12 midnight a second mother came. She was an attempted home delivery, came with the baby between her thighs with the placenta still attached. Our midwife Margaret did a quick obstetric exam revealed that it was twins and preterm at around 7 months. The second twin was borne within 15 minutes. Both twins had very poor scores at birth with 2nd twin barely having any respiratory effort. Both of them needed oxygen with the same priority. But we have only one oxygen concentrator . So all the medical staff including our community health worker Gabriel, were working too fast as a team to resuscitate the two dying babies. We had 4 staff doing CPR, fixing lines, suction, setting up for oxygen praying during this crazy time, and improvising warm bags of water to boost the babies’ body temperatures (temperatures were <32 degrees Celsius for both kids) . We had to share the same source of oxygen for the 2 babies+ alternately giving both babies according to their response to resuscitation. Their conditions were changing every other time with improvements not sustained enough to stop resuscitation. So we went on and on for 4 hours during which one baby, 1st twin, died, and another mother in labour came. We put the surviving twin on oxygen (at 9am). This child seemed to have chances of survival but 1 hour later was resuscitated again.
The mother in labour who had just come had concerns also: she had been in labour for 2 days, was the first pregnancy and was so uncooperative. At around 10am she was fully dilated and was ready to push. All the patients including those who had come for review and admissions had not started being attended to yet. Our community health workers explained to them and made them calm and patient. Margaret was doing the delivery for this lady and 1 and half hours later she had not delivered. The fetus had developed distress already. Dennis was dealing with another new mother in labour who had just come and Tom was seeing a 2 years old child with very high fever and all other staff were busy giving health talks, taking care of the child on oxygen, giving scheduled drugs to admisions, registering and triaging patients. No one was free. As Dennis examined the new mother in labour, Dr Tom jumped into the delivery room to help Margaret on the difficult delivery. One hour later, the contractions ceased and no progress had been made. So we spoke to the family on need for urgent referral. The lady was referred to Wau immediately.
The new lady in labour at was least 5 hours away from delivery and was advised to walk around.
We started attending to our regular patients at around 12 PM.
The new borne who was on oxygen later succumbed at 4pm, so both twins died. The lady who was taken to Wau was reported being prepared for surgery (C/S).
This evening 2 more mothers came in labour. The lady who came in the morning is also close to delivery putting the number at 3 total mothers in labour. Another 1 day old baby has been brought in with severe respiratory distress, dehydration, looking toxic. Is on Oxygen, antibiotics and rehydration.
We ask for your prayers for the family who lost the twins, for safe surgery for the lady referred, for safe deliveries of mothers in labor, and for staff to have rest thereafter especially Margaret.