Malawi Blog 8

Today was our last day of clinic and we again served along-side the Malawian health care professionals from Dowa Hospital.  We saw 340 patients in a fairly remote village.  We set up clinics and a lab inside a church that had concrete slabs as pews – think about what a long sermon would be like sitting on concrete.  We set up other stations, including our pharmacy outside.  It was a beautiful day, but very windy and there was a LOT of fine brown dirt blowing around.

In addition to our clinical team providing care, a main benefit of the medical teams is that we provide needed medicine.   We work with the local leaders to determine a drug formulary, which is a list of medications that are needed and used in Malawi.  We try to order as many medications as possible from a pharmacy in Malawi, but oftentimes they don’t have all of the medications needed for a full pharmacy so bring some from the US as well.  When we have completed all of our clinics here,  we leave any remaining medicines with the local health department and hospitals to continue to benefit the communities.

We celebrated a successful serve mission this evening at dinner.  Throughout the week, we cared for a total of 1,963 patients.  Our team worked hard and we were so blessed by the joy and kindness of the Malawian people.

Tomorrow we will travel to Zambia to see more African beauty through a safari!

I am excited to return next year.  The Malawi medical trip is scheduled in late April, 2027.  If anyone, especially pharmacists, physicians and nurses, is interested, please visit Go go learn more.