In December 2023, I arrived in Tunisia as a member of the 28th batch of China (Jiangxi) Chinese medical team to start a one-year foreign aid work, which will be a new journey for me and an unforgettable experience.
It has been almost 3 months since I came to Tunisia, Africa, from the original apprehension to the calm and calm now, I share some feelings and touches, and the spirit of foreign aid has been passed on from generation to generation.
Sidi province is located in the middle of Tunisia is a tropical continental desert climate, water resources are extremely scarce, everywhere is barren and desolate, in the face of unimaginable living conditions, the medical conditions here are poor, only basic blood tests, no stool tests, I work in the pediatric ward only 25 beds and 10 incubators, and there are few types of medicines.
(The first on the right is U Thant)
In my work, language communication is the biggest obstacle, I have to do pediatrics, emergency department and obstetrics diagnosis, duty and write medical records, and the handwriting of local doctors, it is very difficult to recognize, I can't understand the "local dialect" - local Arabic, I can't understand the "heavenly book" - French cursive, so that I just arrived in Tunisia once felt lost, but no matter how many difficulties, there will always be a way, and the sacred mission of foreign medical aid must be completed.
In order to better devote myself to work as soon as possible, I started by studying the cases of local patients, actively participated in the ward rounds of local doctors, and asked for advice in time if I didn't understand. Knowing and memorizing letter by letter, I was able to work on my own and was praised by the local doctors.
As a neonatal specialist, I have treated a variety of critically ill newborns, including 900 grams prematurely at 26 weeks, irritable gastrointestinal bleeding at 32 weeks, septic shock caused by umbilical cord infection, congenital cleft lip and palate dysplasia, etc., but most of them are neonatal respiratory distress.
Healer, revere every life!
A 36-week premature baby with trisomy 21 combined with anus, the midwife did not find it, and the baby did not poop after birth, and the baby did not poop, and the next day I went to the obstetric ward round, I saw that the child's face was special, with small eye fissures, wide eye distance, slanted eyes, low and flat nose bridge, through the palm, and only one finger fold on the little finger, which is very typical of congenital stupidity, which means that the child will have a variety of deformities.
As soon as he was about to pick him up, he began to vomit, squirting out a large amount of undigested milk residue, and immediately lay on his side to prevent aspiration...... After some hard work, the child was successfully transferred out, but fortunately, the child was saved.
But most of the time, it is very difficult to transfer to a local pediatric hospital because of the high birth rate in Africa, where most families have five or six children. I still remember that once I was on duty, admitted an 8-year-old girl with asthma, difficulty breathing, blue face, and a large area of lung consolidation was found on the radiograph, and she urgently needed to clear the airway, but she could not do it according to the conditions of this hospital, so she also called to transfer to the hospital, but it was unsuccessful, and there was no hospital to receive it, so she could only do frequent nebulization and grasp the last life-saving straw.
I am proud of the mission of aiding Africa, but it also makes me feel a great responsibility, we represent the image of Chinese doctors, and only by working hard to relieve more families can we be worthy of the five-star red flag. I will keep my mission in mind, treat every patient seriously, do my best to relieve the suffering of patients, practice the spirit of the foreign aid medical team, and contribute to further deepening the friendship between the two countries and building a China-Africa community with a shared future.
Source: The 28th batch of China (Jiangxi) Tunisia Chinese medical team Wu Dan
Correspondent: Luo Ying, Wei Meijuan
Editor: Huang Menglin
Reviewer: Xie Tao
Issued: Daley Red
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