MEDICAL CARE and SWAZILAND

Swaziland and Medical Care

Sawubona Again Dear Family, Friends, and Readers

All still good in Africa, but getting chilly, and days getting shorter—already we are looking forward to 21 June ( our 37th Wedding Anniversary !—yikes, we ARE getting old)..when the days will start getting longer…..
Today we are gonna chat a little about medical care in Swaziland. Seems good to do, especially as we left the USA in 2010 June, still a lot of noise about the state of USA medical care, cost of care, quality of care, etc. We know that LOTS can, should be done to improve USA medical care….but thought you might find of interest a little about our experience here in Africa.

Thankfully, due to diet, exercise, time spending chasing children outdoors we have been in great health in Swaziland, in Africa. Gail has had a couple bouts with 24 hour flu bug/ gastro-intestinal bug, and Mike was done for about six hours in August…but outside of those times we have been healthy. This is good because the best medical advice we get from everyone is DON’T GET SICK. All medical services here are very different than USA, and when medical professionals come over I make a point of giving them hospital, clinic tours..just to see.

For starters, the good news is there are govt clinics, that are cheap, almost free. There are also private international organization—Doctors Without Borders, Baylor Pediatric Aids Foundation-clinics that are pretty darn good. The bad news is that the govt clinics have LONG lines, that start forming about 6am, even though they open about 9am…so if you have a minor aliment, let’s say the flu…and you go to clinic…you get there, and are maybe 25th in line, and plan to spend most of day waiting….So simple medical visits take the better part of a day….

Then let’s look at access to services. The nearest town to us is Nhlangano. We are told it is second largest town in Swaziland. There are NO dentists. If we want to go to dentist, nearest is Manzini—60 miles. Again an all day adventure. A couple weeks ago we looked in the phone book for Swaziland—yes one phone book for entire country, and there were NINE dentists listed. This in a country of about 1,100,000 population….so I guess that is one dentist for every 122,000 people. When we left our USA home community of Upper Arlington (pop 30,000)—Gail tells me there were at least 30 dentists…or one dentist for every 1,000 people….. I think you get the drift.

And that assumes you have the money to pay for dental care. About a month ago, we took six of the children to see the dentist. Just typical stuff, each had a cavity or two that needed attention, so all six piled into transportation, and off to Mbabane for the entire day, to see dentist. Seems they got GREAT care, and good dental work, and all accomplished in one day. Cost for all six was 4800 emalengeni…about $725 US dollars. Now this may seem reasonable to you reading this in the USA, six children, dental care, $ 725…..but remember, that 70% of Swaziland population earns about 400 emalengeni per month…so in ONE DAY we spent ONE YEARS INCOME on dental care, for six children. Needless to say the cost of medical care is a little daunting for the vast majority of Swazis.

All you medical professionals reading this…if you want to do a “medical missionary”…give us a shout…we can communicate about getting something organized whether dental, pediatric, etc.

Finally, on medical care. I have friend who is HIV+. The medical specialists he is seeing regularly for treatment recommended that he get his “viral load”checked, to see how the HIV was progressing, or being controlled. They requested the “viral load””, and told us that the govt clinics could not do this test, and that it could only be done at a private clinic in Manzini, and was expensive. Last week we went to Manzini—60 miles each way, and just the transport is about two and a half hours each way…getting to transport, etc. We got the test done, clinic good and efficient. Cost was 456 emalengeni---over one months pay for the vast majority of Swazi population. Crazy.

So let me close on this note. We all know that there is LOTS about medical care in the land of the good ole red, white and blue…..that needs to be fixed, re-arranged, changed, whatever. Let’s be clear, we in the USA still have pretty darn good care….and accessible, and available, and affordable, compared to the rest of the world….and when you look hard at the developing world—especially places like sub-Saharan Africa sometimes the services/ care situations make you cry.
Thank God for all the folks trying to help…medical missions, international organizations, universities from all over the world, and yes even lots of private citizens that “just decide”to come practice medicine, dentistry, whatever….over here where the need is so great.

That’s all for today, Cheers, and Sala Gahle ( Stay Well !).