Practicing medicine like nothing seen in Traverse City, in July Dr. Lynn Swan treated malnutrition, parasites, burns, injuries and deadly illnesses in the harshest conditions.
Spending two and a half weeks in remote northern Zambia, often in deep bush, Swan was part of a volunteer medical team that also included an OB/GYN and a trauma surgeon. Her son, Dan, 17, a senior at Traverse City St. Francis High School, accompanied her on the trip. He tested blood for malaria and HIV, assessed patients during intake and amused the flood of children that came to the makeshift clinics.
The volunteers saw 3,600 patients during their stay, sometimes more than 500 a day. They usually provided the only medical care that patients will have until next year's mission. Triage sorted the patients by severity of illness or wound but scarcity of staff and time often left those with relatively minor issues untreated.
"At one deep bush village, we saw 550 people and 150 were still waiting," said Swan, who is a family practice physician. "We couldn't stay because we had to go by dark, it wasn't safe to travel after dark."
"That was their medical clinic for the year, they would say, 'Maybe I'll get it next year,'" she added.
The excursion is an annual outreach by Orphan Medical Network International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping orphans in Zambia, a landlocked country in south central Africa. Working in Africa since 1989, OMNI's mission is to go where other groups do not. Much of their work focuses on deep bush areas in the northern part of Zambia where people live at a subsistence level, lucky to eat one meal a day.
Drawing on her faith as much as her medical training to cope with the abject poverty and misery she saw, Swan returned to Traverse City determined to spread the word. She and her son are organizing a concert to raise money and both are eager to speak with school and civic groups about the Zambia's orphans and OMNI programs. The organization has already built two orphanages, which include a school and medical facilities, and is raising money for a third.
"There are huge needs everywhere, even in Traverse City, but the level in Africa is so different," said Swan. "You almost get overwhelmed but you just have to keep coming back to one person at a time — you treat them with dignity, love, care and gentleness."
With a population ravaged by HIV/AIDS, malaria and malnutrition, 12 percent of the 10 million residents of Zambia are orphans. The life expectancy is 32 years and Swan observed a whole generation of adults — the parents — missing. Grandparents cared for children as best they could or children fended for themselves, with older siblings raising younger ones. Forty-two percent of the population is under 14 years old.
"One household might have five different family's kids," said Swan, noting that the program brought in 38 duffel bags of medical supplies for the trip, more than the largest regional hospital had in stock. "You see a lot of kids carrying babies and a lot of older people in their 50s or 60s but not a lot of middle age."
Dan drew on his high adventure trips with the Boy Scouts to help him during multi-day outings in remote areas. Picking up a smattering of one of the 72 tribal languages in Zambia, a former British colony where English is widely spoken, he also loved working with the children.
"If you can distract them for a little while, you can take their mind off how bad they have it," said Dan, who plans to return with an OMNI volunteer team next summer. "Mostly people would walk out of the clinic and they couldn't thank us more, they were just amazed we were there for them."
Mother and son were both taken by the perseverance of the people they met, how they keep trying and find ways to survive in the most primitive and barren conditions. They observed how love and music are both universal traits shared across all cultures.
"I told them about snow and about swimming in the lakes," said Swan, who has wanted to travel to Africa since college. "They were amazed that we would swim because there are so many diseases in the water and there are crocodiles, they kill a lot of people."
For more information on Orphan Medical Network International, call 248-320-4496 or see their website at www.orphanmedical.net.