Baramba (rural clinic)

                                

  

Koutiala Hospital supports 6 rural health clinics that are in surrounding areas.  As much as Koutiala looks "rural" in my pictures, these dispensaire's are in the mild of nowhere and are very quiet.  The clinics do all of the deliveries in the area and take care of the basic pediatric care as well.  One of the goals of this trip is to equip 3 out of the 6 clinics with the tools to do sickle cell screening.  Baramba was a perfect place to start.

The Baramba team with Brett and Joseph (pediatric nurse from Koutiala in the front)

Showing the team the blood spot cards and the equipment to draw samples from all of the newborns (they have around 600 deliveries per year).

All meetings are held out in the shade to stay away from the heat.  You can see the water tower for the clinic in the background.

Talking to the first mother about screening her 3 day old baby.  This is the "post-partum" area.

Joseph teaching the maternity nurses about the process of collecting blood from the cord.

Collecting the samples on the cards (donated by Perkin-Elmer in Greenville).  They will collect 50-60 samples in a batch and then deliver to Koutiala for the testing.

The nurses in Baramba learned quickly and are ready to collect the samples on their own.

Random pics from the delivery room.

This used, but relatively fancy delivery bed, was donated to the center but was in the corner in a side room and had never been used before.  We helped the team discover how much better this bed would be for their deliveries and then assisted moving into the delivery room.  

After collecting the samples, we had a small lecture on sickle cell complications with the team using my computer.

The separation between life and death is very narrow in this part of Africa.  The morgue is only about 50 feet from the entrance to the clinic.

Our "gift" for traveling to Baramba.... 2 chickens to take back to Koutiala!

On the road to Baramba...

The hot season is the time to mend your mud house and fences.  You can see the mud bricks stacked in the background.

The amazing Baobab tree...