The year 2012 medical mission THE YEAR 2012
The First Medical Mission, 18th Feb-7th March
Location 1, Apapa- Lagos
The team was led by Dr. Stuart Quartemont arrived for another mission. The first few days was given to God in Port Harcourt, he is also the head of Medical Mission International in Texas, United States. Later we flew to Lagos for Apapa Local Government Medical Mission. The crowd was so much that we called for- back-up” luckily Cliff Jarrell and Keith Lowton responded. Nigeria and for most countries in Africa has a high prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, disorders ,etc.
We saw it all, thousands of patients. The population of Lagos state is about 20 million which is more than some six African countries combined, with the urban middle class often suffering more than the rural poor
.People with huge surgical cases of tumors came from far and near hoping the team can help everyone
in one week (Hope may not be a strategy in developed countries but certainly is an effective medicine here) due to lack of facilities and finance, many of them suffer under conditions that would normally evolve into major problems, some them wait for ten years for hernia that cost one hundred US dollars, some can even wait forever. By the time it was over, 39 patients were operated upon by the team and over 1000 patients were seen clinically and treated. Jarrell joined us from Ghana where he has gone to assist Dr. Fred Massey at another medical mission in the north of that country. Our British friend Keith Lowton also joined us during the Lagos mission. Some cases were carried over till the next mission of our partner organization Earthwide Surgical Foundation of Dr. Brian Camazine. As always in Africa, life is a daily struggle, our hotel caught fire on the last day of the mission, everyone was surprise to see fire service and police responded to our 911 call and put off the fire. Our very own Obuks Ibru was a life saver, she rose to the occasion and took us in that night .W e flew to Benin the next day for the last round of mission in Sapele ,PROFOH mission activities in Lagos was published in Nigeria national dailies This day and Vanguard Newspapers.
Location 2, Sapele Delta State.
The Venue was Charles Obule Medical Centre. The team performed 21 procedures on 14 patients as some had two surgeries each, clinical consultations were about 300 patients. Chief Obule is a founding member of PROFOH ,whenever we got stuck in our interventions, he is always there to bail us out. He picked us at Benin airport and lodged in the city 7 stars hotel and provided Nigeria secret service and six mobile police officers to ensure human protection. Dr. Longinus, old friend joined us from Owerri. Dr Quartermont and his wife on that trip were not used to policing every hour, even at night, as the police officer will knock at their door to be extra sure of their safety. We drove by road to Port Harcourt to enable them fly back to the US.
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