Saturday, January 27, 2018

Welcome to Chogoria!!

Chogoria Hospital was established in 1922 by Dr. Clive Irvine, a medical missionary sent by the Church of Scotland. In 1956, management was passed to the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA). The hospital is about 4 hours' drive from Nairobi on decent roads and is at 5000 feet elevation on the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya, yielding a pleasant climate. We are only a fraction of a degree south of the Equator.
The hospital has over 200 beds. Our work has been on the female medical, male medical, and pediatric units, each of which can hold up to 40 patients. There are also separate obstetric and surgical wards. The outpatient clinic sees several hundred patients each day and there are 1000 deliveries yearly. The hospital is well staffed including American physicians trained in ER (1),  med-peds(1), family medicine(4), and pediatrics(1). Two of the family doctors are Samaritans' Purse post-residency fellows, serving here for a 2 year term. In addition, there are 2 African-trained surgeons, an Ob-Gyn, and a dentist. There are medical trainees at various levels....clinical officers, interns, and residents. This is the first place we have served that has a basic electronic medical record. Also, it is the only place we have been that has a working CT scan - the scans are sent by internet to Nairobi and a radiologist there sends a report back to us.
Due to the elevation, malaria is uncommon. We have seen quite a bit of HIV, TB, pneumonia, hypertension, diabetes, and gastroenteritis. Cancers of the stomach and esophagus are the most common malignancies.

Main entrance of the hospital compound

Looking down on the hospital, a number of buildings
separated by covered walkways with low hedges.


Ready for morning hospital duties!

We pass by a school on the way to the hospital - the children
are wonderfully friendly, often crowding around us to
shake our hands or get their picture taken.

Instead of filtering or boiling water, we use bottled water - the
10 liter jug (note size next to Nalgene bottle) costs only $1.50 and lasts 3-4 days

This is Joy's store, the local version of a 7-11. We can get our bottled
water here and some of the basics. There is a larger store not far away
plus local fruit and vegetable vendors.

Along the road near the hospital are many stalls with all the fruit
and vegetables you could ask for. Susie is in vegetarian heaven!


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