Update from the Under 5s Outpatient Clinic

This clinic has been Susie's "home away from home"! There was a post about it last year so this one will be brief. Each day, many mothers bring in their small children to be seen and patiently wait until they are called. This is dramatically different then the "over 5 and adult" clinic where Dave sees patients - there, the noise and commotion are sometimes deafening!!

Susie has been the only doc in the under 5s for almost all of our time here. There are 2 excellent "screeners" who see and are able to take care of many children, only referring the sickest to Susie to evaluate. Some of these children can be treated as outpatients but many  need to be admitted, usually urgently, for antimalarial treatment, transfusion, malnutrition, or severe measles.

Below is the exam room with the lead screener, Abdou, in the foreground and Susie in back.

So far, Susie has admitted 138 children, averaging around 10 for each clinic day. Of those, 16 died. Each morning from around 8 to 10 AM, she rounds in the hospital on about 15 to 20 of her patients.


We have been blessed to have excellent translators who help us in the hospital as well as the clinics. Below are Dave's translator Dada on the left (with pink "puffy" down coat since it was "only" 75 degrees!!) and Susie's translator, Usmane.