Wounds and Ways to Get Involved

****  WARNING ****
This blog contains some graphic descriptions and pictures.  For those weak in the stomach, you may want to skip over it.

I haven't really talked much about the hospital yet, so I want to write a bit to give you an idea of how it is here at Baptist Medical Centre, Nalerigu.  I will do this over several blogs, so stay tuned.

One common disease we see is called necrotizing fasciitis.  It is an infection in the skin that likely starts as some small sore, but the infection spreads to the surrounding tissue along the tissue around the muscles (fascia) and the tissue and skin begins to "rot" (or necrose) -- thus necrotizing fasciitis.  So now you've learned a little medical jargon.

Many times when the local people get skin infections they will use local treatment that often involves wrapping the limb that has the sore in a compost of crushed leaves, mud and manure.  Needless to say, this does not help the infection go away.  So the small infection then smolders and spreads underneath the bandage.  Eventually, when the patient's skin begins to slough off down to the muscle, they will come to the hospital with a limb that looks  somewhat like this:

The dark areas are not just her skin -- it's the dried "medicine" that was applied elsewhere in the village.  The red areas are actually muscle!!  The treatment is to remove all the dead and dying tissue as well as all the pus (sorry to be so graphic, but you WERE warned!).  The procedure is pretty gross -- both to the eye AND to the nose.  Just ask Cindy or Allie.  They were both in the "operating room" when this wound was cleaned up.  (The "operating room" here is called the Theatre -- it is the British influence from when Ghana was a British colony.  That also accounts for the "re" in "theatre" and "centre").  Here's a picture of the floor after the debridement was complete.

Then the wound is wrapped with bandages and then cleaned and re-wrapped every day.  Periodically, the wound has to go back for more cleaning and debridement if more skin tissue dies.  Eventually, when the infection is all clear, the patient will receive skin grafts here at BMC.  Surprisingly, they tend to do very well.

How can you get involved with this?  The bandages that we use here at BMC are all recycled bedsheets that are cut and packaged in the States.  Check out how you or your church / small group / Sunday School class can get involved in the "Bandage Project" by clicking  HERE.