clinic

Back to clinic. We had many patients of course…but two of them came in who had been screened in the villages back in march of last year when they started the epilepsy program at the hospital, they came in for their first visit and never came back…so 11 months later they returned. The first girl looked like she was about 17 (maybe). She came in and sat down. We asked if she’d had any seizures since her last visit (last year) and she said no. asked more questions and she shut down. Wouldn’t answer questions, wouldn’t look at us, nothing. So I was looking more like it wasn’t a case of epilepsy but someone who had come (with her family as they were in the program as well and also haven’t come back) because they heard there was free medication. The doctor and I left the room to see if she would talk to the translator who was a Malawian medical student from Blantyre. When we came back she said it sounded like a relative might be sick but she couldn’t tell and the girl would give a name…we sent her away without medication and instruction to bring back the patient…as she also isn’t really old enough to be a guardian if the patient is really too sick to come.
The second came in and I thought it would be the same case but it was for a smaller child and it was established that she had had a few seizures…though I still don’t get why she didn’t come back for 11 months. She did get more medication—and we’ll see if she comes back on the prescribed day…