Issue no 3, 2000 -- English edition -- home
Page: -- Contents -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (6), 7, 8
“Can a nun burn out?”
I put the question to Sister Marion Dolan, head doctor at the Mutomo Mission Hospital, located many dusty and bumpy hours southeast of Nairobi, Kenya.
The answer comes with only a little delay:
“Of course. We are after all only human.”
All doctors who have served for the Doctor Bank in Mutomo know what a dedicated effort Sister Marion does with the meager resources available. To run a mission hospital is not easy. State funding is gone since almost ten years, despite the mission hospital providing close to half the health care in Kenya. A third of the hospital’s funding comes from congregations on Ireland.
In the beginning, in the 1960s, nine nuns ran the hospital for Sisters of Mercy, a religious order founded in 1840. Today, there are only Sisters Marion and Brigid, sent from Ireland. Much of Marion Dolon’s time is consumed trying to ensure the hospital’s financial future, even when it is to be run entirely by Kenyan nuns.
In 1972, the hospital needed a doctor. Marion Dolon had given her convent vows. One of these was a pledge to obey. You work where you are told to work.
“I’ve never regretted that,” she says with a smile, but explains at the same time that it was a shock to come to Kenya and realize that most in the admission area didn’t know about modern Western medical care. A very important task was therefore to win the confidence of the patients.
To choose to become a nun is a large and serious decision. Apart from obedience, it means to renounce marriage and to promise to live in poverty.
“We are not allowed to own anything. The group you live in takes care of you.”
But it is not enough with vows. A probation period can last up to nine years, and it is not certain that one is accepted by the order.
In today’s hectic society, it is difficult to recruit women who are prepared to so totally give their life to the church and to work in developing countries. The hope is that the local churches can step in.
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Dr Marion Dolan – nun and head doctor |
“Africa is not just AIDS, was and corrupt politicians. There is also warmth, friendliness and generosity. People strive all the time and never give up. I feel strengthened by my time there and will gladly return.”
Dr Lars Häggblom, from Karlstad in Sweden, expresses these thoughts in a large interview in a local newspaper. he returned in August from working as jeep-doctor in the Homa Bay relay, based by Lake Victoria in Kenya.
Long queues of sick people met Lars and his colleague Joshua every day, but there were no expert colleagues to call for advice and opinion. He had to trust in what he had learned during 21 years as doctor, do his best, and hope for the best.
“One can agonize for less, but there is no time to stand and vacillate; the queue is long and many need help. Here you really feel needed.”
And finally a little sunshine story: He tells of the woman who ran after the jeep and gave him a bag of corncobs because he had helped her little boy.
Dentist Hans Klänge, from Huskvarna, Sweden, returned with wife Elsie to the hospital in Mutomo, Kenya, as part of the Doctor Bank’s dentist relay. It was not easy to establish a modern dentist reception at this hospital, far out in the poor countryside. But it succeeded, and the couple had no less than 975 patients during their 62 working days.
“More equipment is needed for training and relief,” says Hans Klänge. “In time there will be ample work as people surely come to realize how important dental care is.”
The Doctor Bank’s orthopaedic surgeons often perform feats that patients can call miracles. At this year’s Rotary Doctor convention in Holsbybrunn, Sweden, Dr Per-Axel Alffram spoke of some cases he had operated on in Garissa, Kenya. Here is one:
The first picture shows a congenital foot deformity in a girl aged 3 or 4. The parents were told that we could not restore a perfect foot, but with a partially corrective amputation, the foot would get a significantly better form and function. The next picture shows how the foot looked ten days after surgery.
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Before |  |
After |
The Doctor Bank’s very proficient and reliable colleague in West Kenya, Andrew Karanja, is also a proud father. Here with his wife, he shows off baby Karl, who is named after Dr Karl Ljunggren from Jönköping. In Garissa is also the boy Ekman, named to honour the surgeon who has worked there every year since 1991, and who will return in 2001.
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Andrew Karanja with his wife shows off baby Karl |