Month: January 2019

Welcome Opare-Addo Family

History is being made as Dr. Paul, his wife, Lynn, and three children, arrived this weekend for a four-month stay.

Paul is originally from Ghana and has completed his Family Medicine residency at Ventura County Medical Center in California.

He is the first Fellow we have had. We will try to provide him with a rich experience here at G2.

Paul’s supervisor is Dr. James Appel, also a graduate of the FM residency at Ventura County. The latter FM residency is known as one of the best in the US.

Dr. Appel has a vast experience in serving in Chad for 17 years.

Thank you, Lord, for sending this great family!
Bert

G2 Now Open for Eye Surgeries — History in the Making!

Recently the eye surgery team (shown in the photos below) examined
and treated 500 patients for free with all sorts of eye problems.

Forty-eight  patients were selected for cataract removal. They paid a small fee for surgery.

One little girl had congenital cataracts removed from both eyes and has vision for the first time!

From left to right: Dr Jeremie, ophthalmologist from the Ivory Coast, who serves with Chistofel Blinden Mission; Dr Hans Peter, resident in ophthalmology from Austria; Wadjia, a young Chadian doctor interested in ophthalmology; Alphonsine, our Chadian Director of Nursing; me (Bert).
Hans Peter with Dr Tim Teusink the representative from SIM France/Belgium.
Dr Andrew Toren, head of the ophthalmology team here to remove cataracts. Andrew is from Quebec, Canada. Theo, one of our brightest surgical assistants at G2, is enjoying learning a lot about eye surgery.
Dr. Andrew Toren, an ophthalmologist from Canada, and our G2 star Chadian scrub nurse, Theo, who now can assist on eye surgery cases!
Drs Andrew Toren (Canada), Dr Hans Peter (Austria),and advanced eye nurse, Jean, (Chad) screening eye patients to find valid candidates for surgery.
A historical occasion—the first cataract removal. Many more will be performed this week.
Jean is a Chadian advanced level nurse with special training in eye care including certain operations. 
He serves at a clinic about 300  kilometers from G2. He helped us during our recent eye campaign. He is a fine brother in Christ as are all the eye surgeons who took part in the campaign.
Our wards usually stay full of patients so we borrowed two tents from Doctors Without Borders to make sure we had space for our postoperative eye patients. 
I mentioned we wanted to make sure we had “space” for our patients since most of our patients prefer to live, sit and sleep on the ground or floor on their mats/rugs. Some are miserable in a bed!

New Waiting Area Is Already Overflowing

This new outpatient waiting area seats two hundred.

We saw 300 patients yesterday and 150 were eye patients!

The eye campaign ends Friday and the international team will leave. However, we have had excellent rapport and fellowship. Our best male scrub nurse, Theo, has attracted attention by his unusual aptitude and positive attitude. He is a new believer — saved here ?.

The ophthalmologists want to arrange formal training for Theo in Togo for two years. After this, he will return here to serve in our eye clinic and will be able to do cataract surgery.

There is a possibility of CBM (Christoffel Blinden Mission) building a new eye care center here and staffing it.

God is good!

Bert