come one come all.
I am sitting on our thin foam couch after a long day at work with my feet up on a small wooden table that we previously used as a cutting board until we bought something better. Today was our first outreach day into the surrounding communities around Gulu and even though Casey and I sat at a desk under a tree and did next to nothing physically, I. am. exhausted.
I’ll blame my exhaustion on the energy taken in new discoveries. Casey and I both burnt out our brains from the amount of things we learned today. We got to TASO at 8:30 and were on the road at around 9:30 for the Bobi Health Clinic III (I don’t know if there is a I or II) about a 15 minute drive outside of Gulu. There were 12 of us in total, of which there was one doctor (Gladys, she was amazing), a pharmacist (I never got his name), the supervising field officer (Martin, he had an amazing large smile), and others who did counselling, report gathering, record keeping etc. We all squeezed into a truck with two parallel benches running the length of the cabin and off we went.
I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that we were going to a medical outreach clinic where we would meet with clients. When we arrived at the health clinic there was already over one hundred people sitting quietly and patiently under a gigantic tree that served as our shade for the rest of the day. We all hopped out of the truck, unpacked the files, the drugs and chairs and started the procedure.
All day Casey and I were with Gladys, who interviewed patients. She told us that most of the clients were here today for a refill on ARTs, so most of them were quite stable and relatively healthy. While Gladys was interviewing patients, councillors were also talking with clients at other areas around the health centre boundaries, giving them checkups and advice. I noticed that most of the people waiting were women, and often with children or babies. Gladys later explained that often HIV positive men will send their wives to get their medicine instead of making the trip themselves, and some of the women there today travelled as far as 30 kilometers either by foot or rusty bicycle. I was amazed at how well behaved and patient everyone was. We were there, interviewing and recording clients, from around 10 to 5 and not a single complaint was heard. In order to get a refill the clients had to be there from when we arrived with the truck, so some patiently waited as long as we worked. The TASO team not only gave out ART refills but, for those clients currently not on ART, also decided if it was necessary for them to start the treatment. We had a lot of new ART clients today and it increased our working hours significantly.
The two languages of Uganda are English and Luo. For the people we saw today, most cannot understand English, therefore Casey and I were quite useless for relieving the burden for Gladys and the councillors. Instead we focused our attention on the children, who always seem to be interested in us weird looking mzungus. I made friends with a little girl with the cutest raspy voice, I made a paper airplane for a boy who literally stared at me for 30 minutes beforehand, and I made a toddler produce a sonic boom of screams. Babies taking one look at me and screeching is actually pretty common.
Today I learned a lot about the face of HIV/AIDS, I learned that, at least in TASO, Gulu, there is A LOT of red tape that the painfully hard working staff have to deal with every single day. This was my first outreach day and definitely not my last. Before we go out again, I plan on googling everything there is to know about treating HIV/AIDS so I don’t feel like such a useless and clueless mass that happens to be taking up a chair.
Good night!
-Sarah
