After much planning, Sana’s team made up of Reem S. Abu-Rustum, MD, Katia Fajloun, RN and Noura Kassir Jumaa travelled along peach-tree road to Btourmaz, a remote village in the Dinnieh mountainous area of North Lebanon. Btourmaz has a total of 4000 inhabitants and approximately  6 deliveries a month (72 deliveries a year).

 

The team had the warmest welcome from Mr. Mahmoud Alsayyid who is in charge of the local health department, Ms. Ghinwa Fareek, the nurse in charge, and 45 local wives and mothers who had gathered in the conference area anxiously awaiting hearing an informative educational presentation given by Reem S. Abu-Rustum, MD on the best guidelines to follow for a safe and healthy pregnancy.

And after the presentation, and with much ado, Reem managed to break away from some 45 women who had encircled her where each and every one of them was bombarding her with a million questions, all fired at the same time, on so many health and pregnancy-related concerns…

Finally, the team arrived to the safe haven of the examination room where nurse Ghinwa stood guard at the door to prevent the untimely entry of those with burning questions, who were not pregnant, but who did succeed in getting their medical problems and concerns addressed as well…

 

Thee team scanned 16 patients, corrected the dates of 3, informed a supposedly 6 month pregnant lady that she has a non-pregnant uterus which we confirmed by a pregnancy test as well, diagnosed 3 cases of anemia and were shocked at a C-Section rate of 50% in the multiparas seen. Nine of the patients had received 0-2 prenatal care visits this pregnancy.

 

The most moving patient was a 28 year old on her 4^th pregnancy who had lost her last pregnancy due to fetal anomalies and was now at 33 weeks. Supposedly all was well with this pregnancy. Upon scanning here, the team was shocked to find massive fetal ascitis and subsequently provided guidance to her as to the next steps…

 

Ample calcium and multivitamin supplements were distributed to all patients courtesy of Pfizer Consumer.

 

SANA’s team made arrangements for a return visit in the next 6-8 weeks with plans for structured training of the health department’s personnel in order to be able to provide better prenatal care to the local mothers.

 

The hours flew by for both SANA’s team and the waiting patients who were all gratified by the end of the day as they journeyed back home along peach-tree road…