Review Mission 2017: Patients Progress & Growth

Two doctors, one nurse, and me – a volunteer. Nineteen days, and one chance to review as many of our patients from previous Complex Missions as possible, to see what progress they have made post-surgery, and the impact that the surgery has made to their lives.  None of us entirely sure what to expect, and how many patients we will end up seeing.

We could not waste a single day and needed to hit the ground running. Upon arrival in Addis Ababa, we flew straight to Dire Dawa, to continue on to Harar. This beautiful, ancient, walled city is the foundation of the charity and where it all began. This would be our base for the next couple of days. Amongst others, we saw Project Harar’s first ever patients from 2002, Jamal and Fami, which was incredible. Jamal is now working, is married and has two children.

Over the next five days, we would travel through villages in East Harage, back to Harar and then onto West Harage – travelling on very basic roads, through incredible scenery to some quite inaccessible villages high up in the mountains. The eye opener of this is that this is the journey our patients have to make just to reach Harar, never mind Addis, which is over 500 kilometres further.

Each story was so personal to each patient and very interesting to hear. It’s not just about the physical change this surgery has made to them but also the emotional and social change. Patients like Hajera Umer, who since her surgery in 2015 is now married, working, and happy to go out and about socially in her community, something she had never done prior to surgery.

In the second week, we travelled south to the SNNPR region – five hours by road - where we would see our patients in Hawassa. It was amazing to see the wonderfully smiley 11-year-old Lemlem who is happily back in school and wants to be a journalist when she grows up.

All in all, it was a wonderful, emotional nineteen days, filled with a lot of hard work but also smiles and so much happiness. We reviewed 83 past patients and even found 16 potential new patients to see next year. I wouldn’t have missed this trip for the world.

Barbara Griffith is a Charity Ambassador for Project Harar and below is an extract from her blog on her experience of the Review Mission that took place in February this year. We are always impressed by the amount of time and effort Barbara puts into any task put in front of her and we are so happy with the work she has done for our Review Mission this year.