Care Givers Day Celebration

In Chikankata where Christianity is practically at its best, hardly a day pass by without some sort of celebration - a celebration of friendship, care, love, peace, hope, and of course, LIFE!

This time round, it's a DAY for the 'Care Givers', who earned the title of 'heroes' through their commitment and sincere dedication towards the care of people living with HIV/AIDS within the community and the homes.

Zambia, with 15% of its 12 million people having HIV and with a heavy disease burden to bear upon its own shoulder, however, does not lose hope or give up the fight. People like our care givers here are assurance we had with whom we share a common faith of overcoming one day. It's hard to predict when that day will be. But once a change has occured 'inside' with resultant resolve to face positively, then it's already happening. We are heading towards dawn.

<--The main carers of orphans due to AIDS are aunts and uncles but, with increasing ill health and deaths among them too, elderly grandmothers are increasingly also becoming the main carers. In Zambia, more than one-quarter of all children under 15 are already orphaned, and an estimated two-thirds of rural households like here in Chikankata already look after one or more orphaned children. To be in a household containing orphans has become the norm, not the exception. It can also be said that there are only two kinds of people. Those infected with HIV and those affected by it.

The first response to problems caused by HIV/AIDS comes --> from the affected children, families, and communities themselves, not from government agencies, NGOs or donors. This is because the impact of AIDS is experienced first at individual, household and family levels, and gradually more widely in the community. Since such is the case, I think Chikankata AIDS programme is doing the right thing by empowering the individual, family and the community in its fight against AIDS.

<--However, given the scale of the problems and the fact that those hardest hit are often the most disadvantaged, this first response will be insufficient on its own. Additional assistance from governments, NGOs and donors is crucial. For example, like here where each community health assistant is given a bicycle through funds coming from certain donors like the ones mentioned below.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-->

<--The Salvation Army Red Shield Services and others

The Salvation Army World Services Office (SAWSO)-->

<--Our 4 year old daughter Melissa has already started learning much about HIV and AIDS through her father's demonstration using her multipurpose learning board. And I belief this is a simple but significant step every individual can take towards making our community and the world a better place to live in.

"I am a very lucky little boy. My father and mother died. I am an orphan and I am infected. But I am living with a foster family and I am strong and healthy....You can't get AIDS by hugging, kissing, holding hands - we are normal. We are human beings". A testimony of Nkosi Khumalo Johnson, an 11-year-old boy with AIDS, a presentation he made during the XIII International Conference on HIV/AIDS in Durban, July 2000. He died one year later in June 2001.Your care and concern counts. Whoever we are and whatever we may do, we all can be 'Care Giver'.

Medicine in Africa Can Be Fun

Medicine in rural Zambia, sometimes, can be fun. I had a young gentleman in the hospital recently. He mentioned that he was having concerns about his penis. I told him that I would need to examine it just to be sure. So, he undid his trousers for me. To my surprise, the young fellow was fully erect! In medical school, we are taught that when you are examining a male and he has or gets an erection, you should stop the exam and tell the patient that you'll come back later when his erection has subsided. Not in this case. I found out that he had ‘priapism’.

Priapism is an emergency medical condition where there is a persistent, usually painful, erection that lasts for more than four hours and occurs without sexual stimulation. The condition develops when blood in the penis becomes trapped and unable to drain. If the condition is not treated immediately, it can lead to scarring and permanent erectile dysfunction.

The causes of priapism can be many. Beside various medical conditions and illegal and legal drugs which are the common causes, the use of certain roots and herbs for performance enhancement is a common practice in this part of rural Africa. (Viagra is quite out of sight, still).
Photo courtesy: Gunilla Elam, Science photo library

Apparently, this young guy was visiting his fiancé the night before, who was staying some distance away in the neighbouring village. A storm came up while he was visiting her and she insisted that he stay the night in her single bedroom house. According to him, during the night, she crawled into bed beside him. Fireworks ensued, as you can imagine.

A good twelve hours had already gone wasted since the calculated time of the onset. So I had to attend to him straightaway. But mind you, I am neither a surgeon nor a urologist and never before had I seen and treated the condition. Quickly I went through my surgical references, anatomy texts and finally came up with information and a resolve strong enough to tackle the problem on my own. Whatever the treatment options be, the goal of all treatment is to make the erection go away and preserve future erectile function. And I decided to apply the Aspiration method. Under the cover of short acting anaesthesia, I sterilised the organ with antiseptic solutions a number of times and finally introduced a 20G canula exactly on the left corpus cavernosa. Through it I drained and aspirated about 150 millilitres of the trapped blood. It worked perfectly. The organ which pointed 12 O’clock before had finally given up and came down to its normal 6 O’clock position. It was a great relief for my patient. Oh, the fun we doctors have!