Good news, Bad news

Maggie leading songs at her church

One of our most energetic committed community health workers trained in June, 2010, Maggie, has been providing us with updates on her work.  Her first report was super exciting!  She had been working with a patient, Mr. Chabinga, in the community who had a huge open ulcer that covered the top of his foot as well as side of his ankle.  He had visited the clinic and sought treatment to no avail.  Maggie began working with him, cleaning the wound (wearing gloves of course!) and applying small amounts of triple antibiotic ointment on a regular basis.  After a long 2 months of treatment, they both declared victory with a healed foot!  She even brought us before and after pictures in January so we could see the miraculous healing.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the last email we received from Maggie said that Mr. Chabinga passed away on February 9 after being ill with malaria for two days.   Another death that didn't need to be.  We've asked Maggie to provide us with information regarding his treatment (if any) for malaria, the type of medication he took, how soon he took it, etc.  Hopefully we can find a way to empower the health workers to intervene and prevent some of these needless deaths.