January 17, 2016

Business here at the hospital has been slower than normal for this time of year. Usually Jan is the busiest of the year with nearly 180 or 200 surgeries etc but it won't be that many this year. The crops were less as the rainy season was less and the oil prices are very low and lots of government workers are not getting paid because no money so the economy is not very good. We have been averaging about 2 prostatectomies per week and we have had several mastectomies and a few vaginal hysterectomies. We have also seen several unresectable cancers of various kinds. We have had several incomplete miscarriages that required curettages. The man that had been shot with a gun in his back was beginning to recover except still had paralysis in his leg; but then he got severe malaria and he died. 

 
We are looking forward to return of Olen, Danae, Lyol, Zane, Addison, and Juniper (which we have not seen yet except in pictures). They should be here in Bere Wed. Jan 20.
A volunteer, David Hendricks, has arrived to be here a few months helping to get some building projects done and usable. We are glad for that. 

Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.

Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique

January 15, 2016

The gun and knife club has arrived in Bere. Earlier this week we had a patient that had been stabbed in the abdomen. It had perforated his stomach and his liver. He is doing well. It seems that his cows had gotten into someone's rice so they decided to punish him. Now his relatives have taken revenge and bought a gun (which I thought was illegal here in Chad to own one) and shot the man in his back. The bullet glanced his vertebra and kidney and perforated intestines two times which we had to repair and then the bullet came out his front. We have had one or two emergency surgeries every day this week. We had a c-section in a multiparous lady with some sort of thick band in the uterus that would not let the baby come through and she had had no previous surgeries. 

It is at least 10 degrees warmer than it has been the past month. Now the lows are in the upper 60's instead of the 50's F and the highs are in the 90's F instead of the 80's. I think the harmattan dust has diminished somewhat and there is less north wind out of the desert. 

When we were in Denmark we were told that there were no guns allowed and that even most of the police did not carry a gun which we could see was fact. Denmark also has health care for everybody at no charge. Norway and Sweden have a very low co-pay. Of course they have higher taxes but when you compute all the extra costs in USA that are not covered with taxes or insurance it probably comes out about the same. In USA we have the greedy pharmaceutical companies and lawyers that drive up costs of everything so much. Here in Chad we have so much corruption but there seems to be some almost everywhere. 

We are well and in no danger that we know about any more than normal.
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.

Rollin and Dolores Bland
Hopital Adventist de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique

January 3, 2016

Another year has gone into history and one year closer to our Lord's return to take His children home. It seems that New Year's resolutions don't get done anyway so why even tell any. Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and New Years with lots to eat and lots of family time and maybe not too much football. 

I spent part of Christmas Day in the OR, operating on a lady with ruptured ectopic pregnancy that bled a lot into her abdomen and almost died but she has survived with the surgery and a few units of blood given. Today was in the OR with a perforated gastric ulcer with lots of gastric contents in the abdomen. Hopefully he will do well. We had 117 cases in the book for December so have been busy besides having to see the major portion of the inpatients. 

We have watched some Christmas movies and it is still "cold" here down in the 50's F each morning with lots of harmatten dust from the Sahara. Also there is lots of pollen in the air as the mangoes are really blooming now. It seems they are blooming more this year than last year. The beautiful red-orange flowers of the kapok tree are beginning to show. Some say that people are giving more attention to Christmas than they did formerly. There were even some Christmas carols (in English) on the local radio station. One of our neighbors (the hospital administrator) had his radio loud enough each morning and evening so we had the "benefit". On Christmas Day we had a late lunch or dinner and the same for New Year's. 

We got some ripe papayas from our trees by our house today. The kittens over at Danae's house are really cute but wild now. Dolores has been feeding them milk, peanut butter balls, and some fish. They are not weaned yet. Maybe Lyol and Zane can tame them when they get here in less than 3 weeks. There are 5 kittens and already 4 are spoken for that someone wants them. They say that the rats are worse this year than most years maybe because the crops are less. 

No more holidays for awhile so maybe we can all get to work. Ha!
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com.
Love, Rollin and Dolores

Rollin
Hopital Adventiste de Bere
Boite Postal 52
Kelo, Tandjile, Chad, Afrique
Blog www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com