Emotion, emotion and… emotion!
Leg 2, Haroun
A busy start to the day
For this second day of the Rallye, the medical caravan sets up shop in Dar Haroun, in the village of the same name.
It’s been 4 years since Cœur de Gazelles last stopped in Haroun, and the village head welcomes the team with a smile.
The different medical units get set up in their rooms, and the inhabitants slowly begin to arrive. The pace intensifies as the hours go by. By the end of the morning, Noura, in charge of patient follow-up, has already organized 10 transfers to more appropriate medical facilities.
These transfers include patients requiring more complex surgeries, rheumatology cases, trauma cases, and a few cases of infantile angina, a disease which is extremely dangerous on the long term.
Another patient, just 22 years old, is immediately transferred by ambulance to the Errachidia hospital for further testing. After being diagnosed with diabetes, the diabetes screening team realized that appropriate treatment could not be provided by the caravan. The hospital will do blood work and test for ketones in order to properly adjust her medication and avoid the risk of diabetic coma.
Generosity, keyword of the day
Aïcha has been a patient of the caravan for 3 years. She suffers from a degenerative disease that prevents her from being independently mobile.
Providing care for her disease is very costly, and funding is difficult to find. Thanks to the efforts of one of the caravan’s volunteers, her situation is about to improve. Sylvie, who is in charge of the administration unit, raised money with the help of her dad to pay for 3 years of twice-weekly physiotherapy sessions.
“Keep Aïcha moving”
This generous act is in line with the desire of Cœur de Gazelles and its volunteers to provide long-term assistance and solutions for the region’s inhabitants.
Surprise visit
While the doctors look after the patients, part of the team visits a nearby small village called Takoujht.
This is where Cœur de Gazelles built a child care centre using empty plastic water bottles collected at the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles 2017.
This innovative recycling initiative has many advantages: in addition to saving water and energy and reducing waste, it provides better insulation than traditional building materials.
Cœur de Gazelles would like to say a huge thank you to the family of Bernard Guémas, well-known Rallye organizer for many years and a Cœur de Gazelles sponsor for just as long, who generously funded the project following his death in 2017.
1,200 consultations were provided during the first two days
SPOTLIGHT: The pharmacy unit
The caravan’s pharmacy team is composed of Khalid and Majdouline, both of whom work in Marrakech for the rest of the year.
They have one of the most important roles in Cœur de Gazelles, for several reasons.
First of all, the pharmacy receives patients at the end of their visit to the medical caravan. Khalid and Majdouline are tasked with collecting all the patient sheets and taking them to the administration office, where the care provided is carefully recorded. If the sheets are not filled in correctly, the statistics generated will be skewed.
But their role goes much further than that, because the local inhabitants have little understanding of how to use medication. Every prescription they fill is accompanied by a brief explanation, which may seem insignificant to us but is indispensable for these patients who are not accustomed to taking care of their health and are largely unaware of the positive benefits of the treatment.
Another example of the importance to our teams of teaching and raising awareness!
The distribution of medication is another problem in Morocco, because medications are often poorly adapted to the patient’s needs. As the caravan cannot receive deliveries in the field, the pharmacists must try to anticipate what their needs will be for each medication. In the weeks leading up to the caravan, they analyse statistics and put together an order based on the villages that will be visited by the caravan and established patient profiles.
A meticulous job that requires in-depth knowledge of the profession, carried out through the logistic support of our partner Aïcha (Les Conserves de Meknès).
Tune in tomorrow for a spotlight on another of the caravan’s specialties!
PHOTOS
