Yates Family In Soddo

Now over a year ago, Soddo Christian Hospital started a sustainable prevention program for rheumatic heart disease. It involves school based ultrasound screening for early detection of rheumatic heart disease. A group of 6, that grew to 8 nurses were trained on how to do the screening ultrasound. They are now proficient to go on their own to do the screening. After the children are screened, one of our Ethiopian specialists confirms the changes in the heart valves and the child gets started on monthly penicillin injections. The injections prevent further strep throat, which then prevents the scaring on the heart valves.  This chronic cardiac problem not only causes a short life for the child, but often the families pay a lot of money for medications, travel far to doctor’s appointments, other children may not get what they need and it can cause a medical I can’t count the number of tears that I have cried over sick children destined to die of rheumatic heart disease before their ...

As most of you know, I (Michelle) am the head of our pediatric unit and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Neonatal care is separated into the normal babies who may need a few days of breathing support or antibiotics but are otherwise stable, and the high acuity babies who are often suffering from many complications of prematurity and need a high level of cares for weeks or months. We have put a lot of resources into making the best space we could to care for these fragile babies in a safe manner. We have had many many sweet "wins" sending home healthy babies, but we also see death regularly. This has been a especially difficult year in our NICU. Starting in November we started to have a significant increase in our neonatal admission rates and also our neonatal deaths, especially the babies in our acute care room. After much investigation and consultation, we concluded that we have been having an outbreak of hospital acquired infections. By God’s perfect timing, one of ou...

On the heels of a very difficult week in the hospital, I was making my usual rounds. Baby Beniam was a one-month-old boy who had infantile pyloric stenosis and had received a lifesaving operation at our hospital by our general surgery team. He was a few days post-op and still not tolerating all of his feeds. Hid dad approached me and said they could not afford any more medical care because they had already spent all they had on this boy’s life. As the head of the pediatric department, this is the hardest thing I face, and it happens regularly. The baby still needed hospitalization to complete his antibiotics, receive a blood transfusion, and be fed enough in order to gain weight. If I let him go home, he would get sick, dehydrated and die, which would be a waste of the money the family had already spent and the care we had already worked so hard to give.  I consulted the hospital’s Benevolence Fund Committee, and we decided the fund could cover the rest of the patient’s hospital ...

Sometimes we have those days or experiences that drastically change the way we think of life. Sometimes I’m aware enough to realize it, and other days I’m too dense to see what is right in front of me. An encounter with a special family has rocked my faith and my medical world view. This story has two unique parts, the medical amazement and the personal story. As a human being we cannot disconnect the two, but let me tell it as it was revealed to me. A 12 year old boy from a rural area of Ethiopia (12-15 hours transport to get to Soddo) arrives nearly comatose, unable to sit, unable to move his entire right side, unable to eat, barely able to speak. Upon examination he had a fever and a rigid neck. He had signs of increased pressure in his brain, so I couldn’t do a lumbar puncture to confirm my suspicion of meningitis and our CT scanner, the only within 3 hour drive, was not working. He had already been on IV antibiotics for 2 weeks and didn’t get any better. His father, in de...

Medicine in Ethiopia is often difficult. None more difficult than watching many children and young adults suffer and die because of preventable causes. As a physician, it is easy to spend my time working hard to save the lives of the critically ill and hospitalized. As a family physician, there is the constant question, “what can I do to impact and prevent illness?” Ethiopia already has a structure in place for vaccinations and other public health projects, so figuring out my part in the greater pictures has been slow going. When we moved to Ethiopia three years ago, we had this vision of starting a community health program with Kavi and Taylor, but the demands of the hospital have not given us the full opportunity to figure out how and where to do such a project. Our RHD screening team in action Two years ago at the CMDE conference, a cardiologist, Ron Johannsen, cast a vision during his talks on Rheumatic heart disease (heart disease caused by recurrent strep throat infect...

Merry Christmas from Ethiopia! መልካም ገና (Melkam Gena)! Christmas cards are usually about all of the amazing things from this past year, but let’s be real: It’s not always like that, and it has not been like that for us this year. I was reading my favorite missionary community blog and I was reminded that even the first Christmas, the day God gave his best gift to mankind, was a day of “violated expectations”. “The very first Christmas was also greatly anticipated. Prophesies about Jesus had been spoken for centuries. The world was awaiting the “long-expected Jesus,” but how he made his arrival violated many expectations.” You can read about Mary’s, Joseph’s, and Israel’s violated expectations at the Velvet Ashes blog. We are excited to celebrate this Christmas season in Soddo. But that excitement isn’t without our own “violated expectations.” The weather is dry and sunny, not wintery. Some of our teammates have left Soddo either for a short visit home for the holidays or forever and so ...

Nothing in Ethiopia is simple. Everything feels hard and complicated most of the time. Today I was so discouraged, when God heard my cry and answered my prayer. One of our hospital employees has an ASD and has had worsening shortness of breath, although in general she shows early signs of heart failure and pulmonary hypertension. She was told by a cardiologist in Addis that she has to go to the US for heart surgery. Our missionary staff was approached by her asking for help. I tried and tried and could not find anything at a reasonable price in the US or any place that offered significant discount. One of my partners, Sok, contacted Tenwek hospital in Kenya and found they could safely perform the surgery for about $2,800 USD, with few additional expenses for travel, room and board and outpatient evaluation. We started our fundraising and encouraged Kebebush to do the same. This is not a missionary only donation, even if just $5, we want her and her community to help as they are able. T...