This book was my "Bible" when we first moved to a remote part of Tanzania 10 years ago, & I still refer to it todayOne of the things that we don’t have here is sufficient medical care. There is medical care available but it is extremely basic and for medical emergencies our best bet is the city of Nairobi in the neighboring country of Kenya. From the farm, this is a 6 to 8 hour trip – over potholed & unsafe roads (especially if we are traveling at night).
We also have Flying Doctor membership - in case of a dire emergency we could call them up on the radio (although with recently erected mobile telephone networks all over the country, even in the remoter areas you can still get patchy ‘phone coverage) and they would send a light aircraft to our airstrip on the farm and from here, airlift us immediately to Nairobi. (In theory.)
During the 10 years I’ve lived here, I’ve had 2 medical emergencies. The first one was on the remote farm we first stayed on, & as we were within a 2 hour driving distance of an African Mission Hospital, and had our own car, they refused to fly out to our farm to airlift me out. As a result I spent 2 days in the Mission Hospital which was basic, to say the least (in hospitals here you have to provide your own food/water and often, clean bedding too).
The staff at the hospital were dedicated and kind though – so much so in fact that this was the hospital I then used for most of my pregnancy check-up’s when I was pregnant with my daughter, and where she went as a newborn for her early vaccinations.
My second medical emergency was a complete disaster & one I certainly won’t go into on this blog, but lets just say after horrifically botched local treatment I was raced through to Nairobi, Kenya & just got there in the nick of time.
Thank God (& touch wood) we’ve had no emergencies since, my biggest worry being if anything were to ever happen to my daughter.
Having said all that, medical care is much better here now than it was in the ‘90’s even, and before my husband & I came here we completed a basic and an advanced first aid course. We were also taught a few things by a Doctor that the courses didn’t cover (like how to perform an emergency tracheotomy, how to administer a drip etc) as we were living in some of the remotest parts of the country at that stage, in places where even an airstrip was hard to come by and a couple of day’s drive to the nearest (extremely basic) medical care, & we had a camp full of staff who relied on us.
Which brings me to this wonderful book pictured above – “Where There Is No Doctor” by David Werner. This book is a BIBLE for laymen like myself – living in remote parts of Africa. For in this book you will find everything you need to know about basic medical care – from how to examine a sick person, to how to work out medicine dosages & how to use antibiotics aswell as the usual things like how to perform CPR or move an injured person. It also contains pages of symptoms/illnesses and which medicines to administer !
This book was my trusty companion during my early years in Tanzania (along with a medicine box stocked with every kind of medical supply you could imagine !) & was used regularly. Of course I would only treat staff for basic problems or in emergencies & we would ensure that they got to proper medical care as soon as possible …. of course in some places in the world, if you did anything like this and weren’t a qualified medical professional, you’d get sued due to all sorts of healthy & safety rules and regulations etc !
This book now sits (gathering dust) on a shelf in my office, but I had to take it out & dust it off last week when both my husband & I were struck down with a nasty chest infection & I had to prescribe us both a course of antibiotics. Which made me think that I should write a blog post about it, as I’m sure that you’d be interested to hear how we handle medical issues here in Tanzania.
We also have Flying Doctor membership - in case of a dire emergency we could call them up on the radio (although with recently erected mobile telephone networks all over the country, even in the remoter areas you can still get patchy ‘phone coverage) and they would send a light aircraft to our airstrip on the farm and from here, airlift us immediately to Nairobi. (In theory.)
During the 10 years I’ve lived here, I’ve had 2 medical emergencies. The first one was on the remote farm we first stayed on, & as we were within a 2 hour driving distance of an African Mission Hospital, and had our own car, they refused to fly out to our farm to airlift me out. As a result I spent 2 days in the Mission Hospital which was basic, to say the least (in hospitals here you have to provide your own food/water and often, clean bedding too).
The staff at the hospital were dedicated and kind though – so much so in fact that this was the hospital I then used for most of my pregnancy check-up’s when I was pregnant with my daughter, and where she went as a newborn for her early vaccinations.
My second medical emergency was a complete disaster & one I certainly won’t go into on this blog, but lets just say after horrifically botched local treatment I was raced through to Nairobi, Kenya & just got there in the nick of time.
Thank God (& touch wood) we’ve had no emergencies since, my biggest worry being if anything were to ever happen to my daughter.
Having said all that, medical care is much better here now than it was in the ‘90’s even, and before my husband & I came here we completed a basic and an advanced first aid course. We were also taught a few things by a Doctor that the courses didn’t cover (like how to perform an emergency tracheotomy, how to administer a drip etc) as we were living in some of the remotest parts of the country at that stage, in places where even an airstrip was hard to come by and a couple of day’s drive to the nearest (extremely basic) medical care, & we had a camp full of staff who relied on us.
Which brings me to this wonderful book pictured above – “Where There Is No Doctor” by David Werner. This book is a BIBLE for laymen like myself – living in remote parts of Africa. For in this book you will find everything you need to know about basic medical care – from how to examine a sick person, to how to work out medicine dosages & how to use antibiotics aswell as the usual things like how to perform CPR or move an injured person. It also contains pages of symptoms/illnesses and which medicines to administer !
This book was my trusty companion during my early years in Tanzania (along with a medicine box stocked with every kind of medical supply you could imagine !) & was used regularly. Of course I would only treat staff for basic problems or in emergencies & we would ensure that they got to proper medical care as soon as possible …. of course in some places in the world, if you did anything like this and weren’t a qualified medical professional, you’d get sued due to all sorts of healthy & safety rules and regulations etc !
This book now sits (gathering dust) on a shelf in my office, but I had to take it out & dust it off last week when both my husband & I were struck down with a nasty chest infection & I had to prescribe us both a course of antibiotics. Which made me think that I should write a blog post about it, as I’m sure that you’d be interested to hear how we handle medical issues here in Tanzania.
After publishing this post, I was contacted by the assistant publicist of Hesperian, the publisher of "Where There Is No Doctor" who has provided me with the link to their site where free books can be downloaded, including one called "Where There Is No Dentist". If you're interested, you can visit their site here.
