On March 9, 2024, just on our second day in Senegal, we started right away the free clinic at the African Cries Out Base. Very early in the morning, many patients are already gathered and waiting at the entrance of the hospital at the base, waiting to be treated.

The volunteer teenagers in our team were oriented in medical procedures and protocols before going to Senegal, hence they were made responsible for registering patients, recording vital signs, and triaging patients like real nurses.

Before departure, Dr. Chris Liu and Ms. Duan Xiaohong conducted multiple trainings and orientation for the teenagers, so that they can start working as soon as they arrived in Africa.

Our young volunteer workers would rotate among doctors, getting education and training, observing the doctors’ professional thinking, diagnosis and treatment methods. This enabled them to learn how to treat poor patients with kindness and compassion, helping these young volunteers to lay the foundation in becoming excellent doctors in the future – being caring, not harming, and not giving unnecessary treatment.

 

Dr. Xu Hong taught the teenagers a great lesson when she examined a patient with shoulder pain and told them why the patient does not need a cortisone injection in the shoulder.

 

On March 11, we went to Thiomby Village. After more than 2 hours on the bumpy, dusty road, we arrived at the village. We originally thought that at least one classroom would be available (because we had notified their director two weeks ago), but the preparations in the village were insufficient. There were only three tents on gravel platform on site, it was 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 ℃), the heat of the sun hitting our body like needles, and it feels like we’re in a hot oven. When you take a breath, it feels like you are inhaling hot flames.

 

As soon as we got off the bus, all of us volunteers immediately braved the scorching sun and began to set up the open-air clinic. The teenagers were responsible for moving the tables, while the adults find chairs.

                                    The children creatively laid out plastic mats on the ground platform to set up a makeshift pharmacy.

 

On March 9, we enjoyed the cool “clinic room” of the teaching building at the Africa Cries Out Base in Senegal and treated 152 patients. However, in the scorching sun of Thiomby Village on March 11, we treated 212 patients that day!

We also saw a peculiar patient that day. Her whole body was covered with keloids. Those on her ears reached to her chest. Her back was also covered with keloids of various shapes. To our surprise she could speak fluent English. The patient grabbed my hand and said, “Doctor, please help me!”

 

Keloid is an abnormal scar formation that usually occurs after injury or trauma to the skin. They are caused by excessive collagen growth during the healing process and are often more prominent and larger than the surrounding normal skin. Keloid growth might be triggered by any sort of skin injury — an insect bite, acne, an injection, body piercing, burns, hair removal, and even minor scratches and bumps. Sometimes keloids form for no obvious reason. Keloids aren’t contagious or cancerous, but they can be a nuisance and patients who has the condition becomes self conscious and ashamed.

The youth volunteers lamented that if she lived in the United States, they would never let her keloid grow to this point. They are determined that they will use their knowledge & skills to save the patient. We adults were also moved by the youth’s love. We took the patient’s contact information. In the future, we will work with these youth to help this patient.

It is the sincere hope of our team to cultivate successors who cares for people and passionate about health sciences. The youth who came this time saw with their own eyes the needs of the African people and their responsibilities as angels in white to treat patients. In order to bring love, we have traveled thousands of miles and never regretted it.

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If you feel moved to support our ministry in Africa, please contact us：

Jun Xu’s WeChat ID: jun9174343767

电子邮件：Africacriesout@gmail.com

Public WeChat ID: LifeExploring

Web page: https://africacriesout.net

 

Editors in charge: Cao Juanjuan, Zhang Kun

Translator： Peng Wei

English editor：Xi Wang

Editor: Doris Cruz