The flying patients

Our surgical project in Nasir not only serves the population in the county but also nearby counties and even another project on the other side of Ethiopia which is only 10-15Km away. All the time we have referral from these areas but they need to come in by plane or boat, as there's not a single paved road in the region, which making land access very difficult and unreliable if we are having a patient in emergency. But in the rain season from May to September, the so call "airstrip" becomes very muddy and is not landable and in that situation those patients need to try another project in Leer which is farther away from here. Nyakeak, a 7 years old girl from Lakien which about 100Km from Nasir, like many children in the region, they need to find food for survival. She climbed up a tree more than 3 meter high for picking fruits on the tree and unfortunately she fell down and have her left arm bone broken near her elbow, as well as both her forearm bones. To the worst, all three fractures have open wounds. Without proper surgical treatment, she may have uncontrolled infection which end up her arm need to be amputated or best with a deformed left arm and forearm. So she was flying into our project for surgical treatment. In the last three weeks she had operations that cleaned up her open wounds with dirty and dead tissues cut away to prevent infection; then all her wounds closed and all three bones reduced and put in best position before putting on plaster of Paris cast for her. She is now almost fully recovered with all wounds healed without infection and bones united. She was put on a short forearm cast for three more weeks of protection 2 days ago. She was flying back to Lankien yesterday with two other patients, both with gunshot wounds, one at the thigh with fracture and one at the leg with fracture who should be going home since three weeks ago but staying here because either our airstrip or Lankien's was not landable. Similarly, we received a patient one week ago from Mattar, on the Ethopian side with chronic infection from his right leg bone after gunshot wound 3 months ago. He need to have some dead and infected bones removed before he can recovered otherwise he may require amputation later. So he took a 2 hour boat ride to reach us and operation was done 6 days ago with all dead and infected bones and tissues removed. His wound is completely clean now and waiting for skin graft next week, and if everything goes smooth, he should take the boat ride back to his Ethiopian home two weeks later with a healthy right leg. Sometimes I can not imagine how unfortunate and miserable these people can be without the presence of MSF in the area to provide them with medical and surgical care. So please do support MSF and all these poor people by giving us your helping hands!