Sahakevo is in a remote eastern coastal region, and regularly suffers from the devastating effects of storms and cyclones coming in from the Indian Ocean.
Our MMS The team consisted of 12 people, but because of the weight, the plane can only carry 7 people with a pastor from MAF. Therefore some of the team took the long journey by taxi –bush from Tana to Fandriana and then 4hr via motocross bike from Fandriana to Sahakevo. There is a nurse already on site.
Every mission here, we start with a message and prayer led by the Pastor. For the general consultation, the most treated cases are hypertension, cough, gastritis, schistosomiasis, malnutrition. Most of the team then flew back to Tana on 15th April after the plane dropped off the team for the next MMS, to Ampasinambo (40km away, only accessible by plane) the following week. Those remaining, including Maholy here, went to the local Lutheran Church on the Sunday.
Many children were seen, but there were also some really difficult surgical cases:
A 17-year-old girl had a tumefaction on her neck. After the result of the echography, the surgeons could not operate it because the tumor was so close to her vertebral column. Therefore so they proposed her family to take the girl to a specialized hospital for this operation in Tananarive or Tamatave.
Another case:
A mother had a retained placenta, she had a pregnancy of 10 weeks that had stopped for 4 months. The embryo remained in her uterus during these 4 months, which caused her to haemorrhage and she was already very pale. The surgery team performed a curettage on her and her condition improved.
In general, the mission went well, with 481 people seen and treated
STATISTICS
Medical consultation 284; Ultrasound 69; Dental extraction 83; Surgery: major 18, minor 6; Ophthalmology 31.
