Ellie Hamby sent out this report about the 2012 Zambia Medical Mission. Once again, God did amazing things through the volunteers who served.
Our 18th Zambia Medical Mission has come to a close and with six days of clinics we saw a record breaking 20,220 people. They came in droves by walking, crawling, being carried on someone’s back, bicycles, oxcarts, donkey carts and some in the back of large trucks. The needs are tremendous as the people we have ministered to have little access to medical care. For many it was the first time to be treated by a doctor. The pharmacy was extremely busy with the over 6000 prescriptions filled each day. On the first day at the Kasukwe Clinic we saw 3925 patients which was a record in the number of patients we have ever seen in one day. The team was exhausted by the time the day was over. We did have a few people out with stomach problems, but all have recovered and doing fine. Each day we either set records or were very close. It has been a challenge to the team, but we have an excellent group of workers, both Zambian and American, and they worked diligently to serve the vulnerable people of Southern Zambia. Everywhere we went the medical team was presented with gifts; which included 3 cows, 1 goat, and 10 chickens. Two of our truck drivers sold a cow and presented us with the funds to purchase food for the medical team. It is great to see every single person on the team whether they were a truck driver, kitchen worker, or a medical person working together to accomplish the one goal of sharing the love of Jesus with those in such need.
We were also able to send trucks back to Namwianga Zonal Health Center carrying patients for Cataract Surgery. Dr. Moonze, a Zambian Ophthalmologist, performed 83 surgeries in four days. In order to do this he had to operate some nights until 2:00 am. It is hard to put into words the joy that these people express in having their sight restored.
Praise God we had 70 baptisms and we know many other souls were touched and the church will grow and be strengthened. A big thanks to all who helped make Zambia Medical Mission 2012 a huge success.
In His Service,
Ellie Hamby
Zambia Medical Mission
Showing posts with label Zambia Medical Mission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zambia Medical Mission. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Zambia Medical Mission
Lots of photos of the first day of clinics at Njabalombe. Check it out at https://www.facebook.com/ZambiaMission
Monday, July 09, 2012
Zambia Medical Mission
Zambia Medical Mission has begun at Namwianga Mission. The team of Americans arrived on Saturday. K. B. Massingill posted this report:
O
ur team enjoyed worship this morning, and came back to the Hamby Guest House for lunch. We had a lengthy meeting following lunch to walk through a thousand details that we all need to be aware of.
Our greatest hitch at the moment, is that due to a change at the Nursing Counsel all of our nurses must report to Lusaka (six hours away) for an interview before they can practice. This means that a few of our nurses will get up VERY early tomorrow travel to Lusaka, be a part of an interview, and then make the eight hour trip back to our clinic site and arrive after dark. It is difficult, but our only choice. In the years past, nurses who had previously sat for the interview did not have to do it again every year, but a complete turn-over of personnel at the Nursing Counsel means changes in protocol.
You can see photos on facebook.com/zambiamission of our group practicing putting up King Canopies. It is essential that we be able to do it quickly and effectively in order to ensure that we are able to move quickly when the time comes to start our clinics.
The weather last night was cold, but characteristically hot today in the sun.
We will be getting up early tomorrow to travel to our clinic site.
Keep us in your prayers.
You can read more and listen to more updates at www.zambiamedicalmission.com. Pictures are posted at www.Facebook.com/zambiamission
O
ur team enjoyed worship this morning, and came back to the Hamby Guest House for lunch. We had a lengthy meeting following lunch to walk through a thousand details that we all need to be aware of.
Our greatest hitch at the moment, is that due to a change at the Nursing Counsel all of our nurses must report to Lusaka (six hours away) for an interview before they can practice. This means that a few of our nurses will get up VERY early tomorrow travel to Lusaka, be a part of an interview, and then make the eight hour trip back to our clinic site and arrive after dark. It is difficult, but our only choice. In the years past, nurses who had previously sat for the interview did not have to do it again every year, but a complete turn-over of personnel at the Nursing Counsel means changes in protocol.
You can see photos on facebook.com/zambiamission of our group practicing putting up King Canopies. It is essential that we be able to do it quickly and effectively in order to ensure that we are able to move quickly when the time comes to start our clinics.
The weather last night was cold, but characteristically hot today in the sun.
We will be getting up early tomorrow to travel to our clinic site.
Keep us in your prayers.
You can read more and listen to more updates at www.zambiamedicalmission.com. Pictures are posted at www.Facebook.com/zambiamission
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Great Articles About Zambia Medical Mission
David Ramsey, 2011 Zambia Medical Mission team member, is a columnist for the Colorado Springs Gazette. After this year's trip, he wrote a feature article on Zambia Medical Mission which highlighted the 12 ZMM team members from Colorado Springs. This article was featured on the front page of this morning's Sunday paper. There are actually two articles, and you can click on the links below to read them.
http://www.gazette.com/articles/stands-124387-day-miles.html
http://www.gazette.com/articles/zambia-124389-colorado-springs.html
Thanks David for the excellent articles.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Left Behind Group
Zambia Medical Mission 2011 ended with a transportation nightmare when 18 of the team members missed their flight got left behind in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Read Ellie Hamby's description of it here:
Carole Buchholz, who suffered the broken wrist at the beginning of the medical mission, was sent to Nashville for medical treatment after she spent about a week in the hospital in Johannesburg. We understand she had surgery in Nashville and is doing much better.
Of course, many of you have heard about the “Stranded 18” in Zimbabwe. We had to send 33 people to Victoria Falls to fly out as there were not enough seats for the whole team on the flight out of Livingstone. Normally, it is not a problem to cross the border, but that day it took 3 ½ hours at immigration at the border and this caused 18 of our people to miss their flight. I went on the bus to the airport with the first group and even though the gate was closed for the flight I managed to get them to open it back up for our group. The ground crew agreed to delay the flight as long as possible to wait for the remaining 18 to come and did so until the captain said he was waiting no more and closed the door. The plane took off just as the group arrived at the airport. The 18 had to spend the night in V/Falls and we were able to find them accommodations at Russell Caldecott’s (Ultimate Africa) and they did get to go to the Boma for their evening meal.
Overall the Zambia Medical Mission 2011 went exceptionally well. We had two major is sues (one at the beginning and one at the end) but other than that it was great. We saw thousands of people, our group stayed basically healthy, we had plenty of medicine, and the kitchen crew did a suburb job of feeding everyone. A big thanks to Josh Judkins and his kitchen crew for stepping up when Nadara could not come. They did an excellent job and Leonard Sichimwa, head cook, said it was 100%.
Carole Buchholz, who suffered the broken wrist at the beginning of the medical mission, was sent to Nashville for medical treatment after she spent about a week in the hospital in Johannesburg. We understand she had surgery in Nashville and is doing much better.
Of course, many of you have heard about the “Stranded 18” in Zimbabwe. We had to send 33 people to Victoria Falls to fly out as there were not enough seats for the whole team on the flight out of Livingstone. Normally, it is not a problem to cross the border, but that day it took 3 ½ hours at immigration at the border and this caused 18 of our people to miss their flight. I went on the bus to the airport with the first group and even though the gate was closed for the flight I managed to get them to open it back up for our group. The ground crew agreed to delay the flight as long as possible to wait for the remaining 18 to come and did so until the captain said he was waiting no more and closed the door. The plane took off just as the group arrived at the airport. The 18 had to spend the night in V/Falls and we were able to find them accommodations at Russell Caldecott’s (Ultimate Africa) and they did get to go to the Boma for their evening meal.
The problem we were facing is that a group ticket cannot be changed without huge penalties. The agent at V/Falls agreed to send the group on to South Africa at absolutely no charge and even upgraded the group to Business Class. I decided to fly with the group as we were facing monumental problems upon arrival in South Africa. I had awaken our travel agent at 1:00 am in the morning and also I called KB and told him the worse case scenario was that we were facing a cost of at least $3000 for each person to reissue a ticket. Our travel agent worked on the issue but told me all I could do was plead our case to the international ticket agency in J/Burg airport. On the flight there I spent all my time in prayer and rehearsing the speech I was going to give. I planned to tell them that we were loyal customers of South African Airways and that our group was all volunteers doing humanitarian work in Zambia. When I arrived at the counter and started my speech to the supervisor, he quickly stopped me and said, “If you are with the 18 coming from V/Falls do not worry as all has been taken care of and all they need to do is go check in.” I asked him to repeat it twice to make certain that is what he said. The group quickly went to check in and got boarding passes for their trip back to the USA. All this was done with no cost to Zambia Medical Mission. I do not know who intervened (but I know prayers were answered). KB said in his email, “Those who are with us are greater than those who are against us.” The stranded 18 were real troopers and made the job of sorting things out much easier.
Special thanks to all who helped make ZMM 2011 a huge success. Many of you donated money to help individual team members and also for medicine, clean delivery kits, cataract surgery, containers, and wheelchairs. Your participation with us is greatly appreciated.
My notes: Ellie does an amazing job of coordinating this huge medical mission, handling crises like this with courageous grace. What a hero!
Zambia Medical Mission 2011
This is a photo of the Zambia Medical Mission team for 2011. Ellie Hamby describes their efforts:
We have just completed our 17th annual medical mission trip to Zambia. This year we had a team of around 240 (this includes the 120 Zambian medical, spiritual and support staff volunteers). Our group worked very hard as the lines of patients coming for treatment were often quite long. We were able to treat all that came and that is always our goal. This year we saw over 16,000 patients in 6 days of clinics. On our 5th day of clinics we saw 3700 in one day and you can imagine everyone was very tired. Our team stayed healthy and we are thankful for that. The first few days we experienced very cold weather, but the last few days it was quite warm.
We sent over 150 cataract patients to Namwianga where Dr. Moonze and Dr. Teague performed the surgeries. They made many people extremely happy to have their sight restored. As the A-Team (Advance team) was traveling to Kasukwe for our 3 clinic they saw a man at a junction wearing cataract glasses. When the man saw the Namwianga vehicles he started shouting “Namwianga, Namwianga, I can see now that I had eye surgery at Namwianga”. It was a blessing for all to experience his dancing for joy on having his eyesight restored.
We made 3 emergency runs where we had patients that would not have survived if we had not been there. One was an old man that was critically ill with stomach issues and was being brought in an ox-cart. A truck was driving by and saw the man was very sick so they moved him to the back of the truck and he was brought to our clinic at Njabalombe. Dr. Tate attended to him and said he had to be transported immediately as his condition was grave. We hooked up IV’s in the back of the Land Cruiser and lifted the old man into the back. He was transported to the nearest hospital which was over 2 ½ hrs away. All indications were he was going to make it.
On our 4th clinic day we were at Kasukwe and a young man was carried in with a horrible foot injury caused by a maize threshing machine. He had traveled 6 miles in the back of an ox cart and had lost a considerable amount of blood on the way. He was bleeding profusely as he was being carried into our wound care clinic. Dr. McKenzie quickly attended to him to get the bleeding under control and IV’s were started. The young man had gone into shock as his condition was also grave. Within 10 minutes of his arriving at the clinic we had him in the back of a vehicle with IV’s connected on the way to Macha Hospital. They rushed him there in record time (about 1 ½ hrs.) and by the time they got to Macha he was becoming alert. Our medical personnel are confident he would have bled to death if we had not had our clinic at Kasukwe.
On the 5th day of clinics at Kasukwe we had a 15 year old girl come in with lesions on her face. It was determined that she did have leprosy and we gave her mother funds to take her daughter to Chikinkata (the leper hospital in Zambia). It is felt if she can get started on treatment they will be able to save the loss of her limbs and the advancement of the leprosy.
We had over 50 people brought in that needed wheelchairs. Some of them crawled, some were carried, and some came on bicycles or oxcarts. These were given wheelchairs and therefore the gift of mobility.
The expression of joy of the faces of the thousands of people is indescribable. The following statement was often expressed, “Why did these people cross the waters to help someone they did not know?” The answer was simple “They did it to show the love of Jesus”.
Lives were saved both physically and spiritually, eyesight was restored, dignity was given to each patient and all in the name of Jesus. There were around 80 people baptized and we praise God for that.
We sent over 150 cataract patients to Namwianga where Dr. Moonze and Dr. Teague performed the surgeries. They made many people extremely happy to have their sight restored. As the A-Team (Advance team) was traveling to Kasukwe for our 3 clinic they saw a man at a junction wearing cataract glasses. When the man saw the Namwianga vehicles he started shouting “Namwianga, Namwianga, I can see now that I had eye surgery at Namwianga”. It was a blessing for all to experience his dancing for joy on having his eyesight restored.
We made 3 emergency runs where we had patients that would not have survived if we had not been there. One was an old man that was critically ill with stomach issues and was being brought in an ox-cart. A truck was driving by and saw the man was very sick so they moved him to the back of the truck and he was brought to our clinic at Njabalombe. Dr. Tate attended to him and said he had to be transported immediately as his condition was grave. We hooked up IV’s in the back of the Land Cruiser and lifted the old man into the back. He was transported to the nearest hospital which was over 2 ½ hrs away. All indications were he was going to make it.
On our 4th clinic day we were at Kasukwe and a young man was carried in with a horrible foot injury caused by a maize threshing machine. He had traveled 6 miles in the back of an ox cart and had lost a considerable amount of blood on the way. He was bleeding profusely as he was being carried into our wound care clinic. Dr. McKenzie quickly attended to him to get the bleeding under control and IV’s were started. The young man had gone into shock as his condition was also grave. Within 10 minutes of his arriving at the clinic we had him in the back of a vehicle with IV’s connected on the way to Macha Hospital. They rushed him there in record time (about 1 ½ hrs.) and by the time they got to Macha he was becoming alert. Our medical personnel are confident he would have bled to death if we had not had our clinic at Kasukwe.
On the 5th day of clinics at Kasukwe we had a 15 year old girl come in with lesions on her face. It was determined that she did have leprosy and we gave her mother funds to take her daughter to Chikinkata (the leper hospital in Zambia). It is felt if she can get started on treatment they will be able to save the loss of her limbs and the advancement of the leprosy.
We had over 50 people brought in that needed wheelchairs. Some of them crawled, some were carried, and some came on bicycles or oxcarts. These were given wheelchairs and therefore the gift of mobility.
The expression of joy of the faces of the thousands of people is indescribable. The following statement was often expressed, “Why did these people cross the waters to help someone they did not know?” The answer was simple “They did it to show the love of Jesus”.
Lives were saved both physically and spiritually, eyesight was restored, dignity was given to each patient and all in the name of Jesus. There were around 80 people baptized and we praise God for that.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Numbers for Medical Mission
Here are the numbers for the 2007 medical mission.
Medical 10,325
Dental 1,957
Optometry 3,295
Total number of people treated in ZMM clinics 15,577
Baptisms 143
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The Path of Pills
When we are doing the bush clinics, one of the big yellow buses becomes the pharmacy, or Pills on Wheels as it is affectionately known. Here is how it works.
The patient turns in a prescription at the front door of the bus. A pharmacy worker places the prescription in a blue bowl. Liz McClellan is shown here at her post.
Next, another worker takes the blue bowl down the aisle of the bus, stopping to select the medications out of red trunks placed on the seats. Sara had this job during the medical mission.
Then the prescription goes out the back of the bus to one of the Zambian nurses or pharmacists. The patient is called over and is given the prescription along with instructions on how to take or use the drug.
It's an efficient system that works very well. The bus keeps the wind and dust out of the pharmacy, and using the bus frees up other rooms for the medical and dental teams.
I don't have a good photo of Star Ferguson, but no description of the pharmacy is complete without mentioning her. Star works year round to collect, organize, and run the ZMM pharmacy. Her tireless and enthusiastic efforts have relieved the suffering of tens of thousands of Zambians. She's one of my heroes.
The patient turns in a prescription at the front door of the bus. A pharmacy worker places the prescription in a blue bowl. Liz McClellan is shown here at her post.
Next, another worker takes the blue bowl down the aisle of the bus, stopping to select the medications out of red trunks placed on the seats. Sara had this job during the medical mission.
Then the prescription goes out the back of the bus to one of the Zambian nurses or pharmacists. The patient is called over and is given the prescription along with instructions on how to take or use the drug.
It's an efficient system that works very well. The bus keeps the wind and dust out of the pharmacy, and using the bus frees up other rooms for the medical and dental teams.
I don't have a good photo of Star Ferguson, but no description of the pharmacy is complete without mentioning her. Star works year round to collect, organize, and run the ZMM pharmacy. Her tireless and enthusiastic efforts have relieved the suffering of tens of thousands of Zambians. She's one of my heroes.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Link to Zambia Medical Mission
You can read more detailed reports of the medical mission by clicking on the title above. ZMM Director K. B. Massingill has written daily accounts of our clinics and activities.
New Faith
Many Zambians wear beads that they believe will help them to ward off evil spirits and stay healthy. This lady studied the Bible with me and decided to become a Christian and put her faith in Jesus rather than beads and witchcraft. Before her baptism, she willingly let me cut off the necklaces and bracelets she had been wearing.
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