"Too Successful!"

The clinic is "too successful." We were swamped during the first two days with many more children than we could assess.  

Fifty-three children arrived but we were only able to assess nineteen. We saw all the acutely ill children and requested that the remaining mothers return over the next few days.

The clinic has limited hours of operation and until a few days ago, none of the team had met one another. Any lack of medical experience has been more than compensated by genuine compassion, a wonderful spirit of giving, and a "can do" attitude. Congrats to Project Woo who made this clinic possible. 

The volunteer workers come from the United States, Canada, and Spain - a true international effort.

We were not prepared for so many families. Our expectations were that the community might be slow to support the new clinic. Several weeks ago I was cautioned not to expect to be busy!!

Many of the families were disappointed not to be assessed. Good health care takes time. An important principle is not to sacrifice quality for quantity. 

With so many children, one of the biggest concerns was to identify the acutely ill children from those who were only at the clinic for a routine well child check up. Triage is the medical word that describes the process necessary to separate patients by acuity. Triage is a challenge for every health care facility and for experienced health care providers. We talked a lot about this and my sense is that we did a great job.