I was to lead a small contingent of health care workers and staff the rural health care clinic at the remote mission site during the two weeks the team was in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a modern country in many respects, but poor. In 1980 the native population regained control of the country then known as Southern Rhodesia. The physicians are concentrated in the major cities, leaving the vast rural population with little or no exposure to ongoing medical attention. Approximately 30 percent of the population is HIV positive.
Malaria is prevalent.
Upper GI symptoms, chronic conjunctivitis from the smoke and dust, asthma, diabetes, hypertension, tuberculosis are all on the list of patient complaints we saw in those few days. We were fortunate in being able to take with us to use and to leave at the clinic an extensive supply of commonly needed pharmaceuticals. The word of our arrival was spread across the hills and villages very quickly and we began to see about 100 patients a day. The patients tended to carry a limited medical history with them in a small booklet or collected scrapes of paper. This actually proved to be very helpful, especially when trying to evaluate blood pressure treatment in the adults or nutritional status of the children compared to their last visit to the physician or nurse.