Team Tunami means hope to patients
K-Staters take medical expertise to Kenya
A slum in Africa might be an unlikely vacation destination, but for a physician and a nurse from K-State, the long lines of patients waiting to see them were proof that they'd come to the right place.
Dr. Robert Tackett and Nicholle Haupt took their skills to Kenya this spring, along with medicine and supplies donated by members of Manhattan's Westview Community Church, which sponsored the two-week mission.
Haupt is a registered nurse at Lafene Health Center; Tackett is the center's medical director.
Two K-State students -- Mike Moeschler, a paramedic, and Jessica Carr, an EMT -- accompanied the group.
Members of three other churches -- Trinity Baptist and Mt. Calvary Lutheran in Wamego and First Covenant in Salina -- also were on the team.
In addition to a week spent setting up a free clinic in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, the 11-member team traveled to the Serengeti plains to treat the Maasai people.
"It's humbling to know that people would walk up to 10 kilometers to stand in line to be seen by a physician in those villages," Tackett said. "Some even had a high fever due to malaria."
In Kibera as well as on the Serengeti, complications from that disease were common, as were soft-tissue and upper respiratory infections and parasitic diseases. "But general childhood infections, like ear infections, were pretty common too," Haupt said. "There was also a dentist on the team, so we treated many tooth infections."
She spent much of her time filling prescriptions after diagnosis by the medical providers.
"I'm an RN by training, but I worked mostly as a pharmacist on this trip," she said.
This was the second medical mission to Africa for both K-Staters. Tackett traveled to Zambia in 2005; Haupt visited that country in 2003. She also has assisted missionaries in Ecuador.
Kibera may be the largest slum in Africa. Population estimates range from 600,000 to 1.2 million, all living in one square mile. Basic services are non-existent; raw sewage runs in small streams throughout the slum. "It really made you appreciate what you have here at home," Tackett said.
"They are so thankful for the Nicholle Haupt |
By the time the Westview team arrived in a Kibera church compound, a shipping container had been converted into a clinic. Theirs was the first medical team to use the clinic, which is now staffed by local nurses, Tackett said.
The Westview group, which called itself "Team Tumaini" after the Swahili word for "hope," set out to assist two missionaries, Ken and Susan Black. The team was able to treat more than 750 people during its two weeks in Kenya.
In the Serengeti, team members set up treatment facilities in an existing clinic in the village of Sekenani and spent a week treating patients from the surrounding area.
"It worked best for us to send out vehicles to other, less accessible, villages and bring people in to be treated," Tackett said.
That week provided another cultural lesson for Haupt, whose job of screening patients included asking for their ages.
"The Maasai don't keep track of age, so when you ask them how old they are, they just laugh and come up with a number that they think is appropriate," she said.
For her, the reward of the trip was "just being able to see the reaction of the people that we were there to help.
"They are so thankful for the little they have and were even willing to share with us during our stay."
"These trips to Africa have reshaped who I am," Tackett said. He hopes a future trip will take him to a disabled children's home in a village north of Nairobi: "It's not if, but when, I'll have another chance to go back.
"I would encourage people to be ready to step through the open doors of opportunities set before them," Tackett said, "even if those opportunities are initially out of their comfort zone."
Photo: Dr. Robert Tackett, medical director at Lafene Health Center, places a Powercat decal on the shipping container that was converted into a medical clinic.