Screening Day

Screening Day was last Wednesday and was a ship-wide event. Screening Day is one of the most important days in the organization because it is when the majority of surgery dates are assigned to patients. Screening takes place at a location in the city and people line up by  thousands to be seen by a Mercy Ships doctor in hopes of getting help. In Togo, screening took place at an arena about 30 minutes from the ship. The venue was manned by Mercy Ships crew the night before the screening as security and the rest of the crew left the ship at 4:30am (I know! yuck!) on Wednesday morning to arrive and begin the day. Outside of the arena the potential patients lined up single file. The line was so long that it seemed endless when the car I was in arrived at about 6am!! The Togolese police were there to assist in keeping people orderly while they waited. Mercy Ships crew went up and down the line and explain what kind of problems we will serve to help weed people out of the line that we cannot help. This is essential (even though it is really sad) because there is not enough time to see every patient, especially if we know  that they have a medical concern that Mercy Ships cannot help. There were about 3,600 people who were in line and about 1,600 patients that were screened.

The patients go through quite a process once they are approved to be screened and enter the arena! They are accompanied to registration where basic information is taken, then to history where nurses take medical information, then the patients are split into general surgery, maxfax, or plastics (based on their needs). Patients are then seen by doctors and nurses to decide if they qualify for a surgery and are assigned a date to come to the ship. They then go to data entry, to get x-rays and to communications for pictures.

I was super nervous about going to screening (of course!!) because I get overwhelmed with the medical needs that people here have. BUT I must say this is just another example of me freaking out… for not really a reason! Being a part of screening was absolutely amazing and I think it will be such a sweet part of my Mercy Ships experience. It was so awesome to be able to work with the people of West Africa and be a part of the purpose of Mercy Ships. I was assigned to work in the history section, where each patient must go through at the beginning of screening. I loved being placed there because I had the opportunity to see pretty much every patient that went through screening. When I see pictures I can recognize almost everybody!! I feel like most of the lessons that I have learned throughout my time in Africa have been cliché things… but ownership of the lessons for me has been (I think!) transforming. Mercy Ships preaches that patients are just normal people and they crave attention and love- especially if they have physical deformities because they have most likely been ostracized from their own home communities. I have always been consumed with how uncomfortable I am with their injuries that I haven’t really forced myself to learn this. Screening gave me the chance to see how much the patients value Mercy Ships… and I could see in a whole new way how many of the people tried to cover their deformities. It absolutely broke my heart to think of how people live trying to mask themselves. It also made me almost anxious to make eye contact and try to communicate in some kind of way that I didn’t care about it. Since I don’t speak French, I had to try to smile and gently touch them on the arm when I was leading them, just to try, in my own way, to show that I saw them- actually saw them. Bottom line is that the patients really are just people (duh! so glad this took me 8 months!)… and I loved being able to serve them for the day. I truly LOVED it!

On another note… I have been filling my time in Togo with friends and all kinds of things including going to the market, the beach, and going to quite a few restaurants! Last week was Kayleigh’s birthday so a group of us went to a nice dinner and then to get ice-cream. We decided that since Togo is FULL of nice places to eat… we will eat our way through our time here!! I will keep you updated on the places that we try!! Just on a side note… I am pretty sure that West Africa has the best fries in the whole world. I wish everyone could try them, because I am almost certain that you would agree.

This was all the LandRovers heading to screening! We were quite a line!

Seriously… LOOK at this cute face!! Some crew were assigned to Children’s Ministry to play with the kids as they waited in line. This was one of the little boys there!

“Zimmy-Johns” are the most popular type of transportation in Togo. This was outside the stadium.

The Togolese police helped with security on Screening Day.

This is one of the rooms where patients are seen by a doctor.

This was where I worked- where patient history was taken.

This is me directing patients 🙂

There were lots of babies with a variety of health problems.

This is the paperwork that patients get when they are screened. The yellow card has their surgery date on it and allows them onto the ship.

The hospital opens for crew to tour and do activities before any patients arrive. We went and did all kinds of fun activities… and got stamps because of it 🙂

Beach!