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Shirts — check.
Surgical instruments — check.
The contents of Fred Welke’s luggage might seem a bit odd, but he’s no weekend traveler.
Welke and a group of 25 other medical professionals and missionaries from the area are packing for a two-and-a-half-week medical mission to Tanzania. They will leave Feb. 1.
Each will bring two
50-pound suitcases — one with regular items like clothes and hygiene products, the other with supplies to help stock the Nyakato Clinic in Mwanza, a city of 400,000 in the northern region of the East African nation.
In all, the team will bring about 1,200 pounds of medical supplies, including exam gloves, casting materials and surgical equipment.
The team will spend 10 days at the clinic, with a one-day interruption for rest, seeing an estimated 1,500 patients, said Welke, a nurse anesthetist at Community Memorial Hospital in Winona.
People will walk for
miles when they hear western doctors are visiting, said Dr. Carmen Scudiero, who practices internal medicine at Winona Health in Rushford, Minn.
Welke estimated the team will perform three to five surgeries per day on the clinic’s lone operating table. That is, if everything goes according to plan.
All of the supplies the team will bring come from donations of surplus materials of samples no longer needed from area medical centers or at reduced cost.
About $2,000 will also be sent to the clinic prior to the team’s arrival to make sure other supplies, such as medicines, are there waiting.
Each member of the team must pay their own way there —about $25 per day to stay in a nearby hostel or house and for a three-day sightseeing excursion near the end of the trip, for a total of about $3,000 per person.
Each will also take time off from work to take the trip.
The cost is only a small sacrifice compared to all the work that needs to be done, Welke said.
“There is such a need for this kind of work,” he said.
“It’s a never-ending battle,” said Dr. Sue Jelense, “but you have to do something.”
The trip is just one small step in improving health care. The goal is to turn the clinic into a fully functioning hospital — of which there are few in the area — in five years.
Of course, there are risks involved.
Despite thorough preparation, the possibility of contracting a disease is a danger.
One of the biggest threats is malaria, an infectious disease often carried by mosquitoes. Although treatable, malaria is potentially deadly and causes fever, vomiting and convulsions.
The team expects that some of them will experience some sort of illness during their stay.
After consulting an army officer who had previously done work in conditions similar to those in Tanzania, Welke found that about
10 percent will experience some sort of illness.
