We awoke in the morning and headed off to the clinic for what would turn out to be one of the saddest days of our trip. We split again into our multidisciplinary teams. As well as our general health check up questions we also kept an eye out on the general well being of each child we saw.
After a while, it got quite busy. We had a girl who had collapsed, so it was all action stations where we had to take her blood pressure, blood glucose and temperature. Luckily it wasn’t too serious and we were able to treat her there and then.
We then had a young girl who was quite upset. Whenever you touched her arm it would be really painful and she struggled to form a fist. Upon examination a scar was discovered which had apparently occurred a year ago after she had been burnt by an iron. There was nothing we could do long term for her pain and we needed to refer her to the hospital to get it checked out. How she has been able to go through a year with that pain I am not sure. I felt so helpless seeing a child in so much pain.
Before long there was a girl who unfortunately was suspected of being hit. All we could do was make a note of the child and hope something could be done to help them. The one outcome which has come as a result of this, is that we refuse to accept that nothing can be done to help these poor children. In the short term very little can be done. But we hope that we can perhaps set up a team which can specialise in counselling and treating the mental problems and abuse which is taking place. This is just the start. This trip is hopefully the first of many… helping to change the world one step at a time. We will never give up hope! With A World Without Barriers, we can make a difference.
l don’t want this trip to end.
By Zainab W
April 2016
