On the road with mobile ultrasound!

We recently introduced you to Veronika. Before she started the echo course, our board member Saja went out with her for a day with the Mamabus 2.0. Veronika got a taste of ultrasound and that tasted like more.Saja talks to us at:“Today I am going with Veronika with the Mamabus, a collaboration between the TPC hospital, the Driving Nurses Foundation and the Mount Meru Foundation. The bus offers pregnancy checks to women in rural Lower Moshi, women who would otherwise not be checked during pregnancy. TPC provides the crew, Driving Nurses for the bus and the program and Mount Meru Foundation for introducing ultrasound on the bus. Veronika was recently hired by TPC and is being trained on the Mamabus. In order to also be able to offer ultrasound, she recently started the ultrasound course at the KCMC hospital. This has been made possible thanks to sponsorship by the Mount Meru Foundation.We stop at Mserekia dispensary (a small doctor's office), where we pick up Dr. Donald, the Clinical Officer in charge. We also stock Benzimidazole tablets and vitamin A capsules. Then we head to a playgroup located further away. The teacher pulls out a thumb notebook with a list of names. The children who need medication are grouped. Benzimidazole is given to combat parasites. Vitamin A is administered because there is a structural problem in Tanzania with vitamin A deficiency in children (but also in women or childbearing age), which can lead to blindness but also the risk of complications due to infectious diseases (such as diarrhea and measles) ). One-sided nutrition is one of the main causes of the vitamin A deficiency: the menu often contains few vegetables.The playgroup has recently become one of the fixed stops of the Mamabus, but unfortunately there are no mums today. Back at the dispensary, however, we find a woman who is 31 weeks pregnant. We do the pregnancy checks and make an ultrasound with the mobile ultrasound device. Veronika and Dr. Donald are very interested and I give both the opportunity to have their first echo experience. I explain how ultrasound can be used in rural areas, what the importance of early determination of the term is and what you look for during an ultrasound examination in the different trimesters of pregnancy.The atmosphere at the visited stops of the mamabus is pleasant. A very large variety of patients is helped with few people and resources. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that there is a lot to be gained here with the introduction of mobile ultrasound. This is pre-eminently a patient population that has very different symptoms. Ultrasound can contribute to diagnostics and timely referral here. Dr. Donald, as the only doctor in this place, is very interested in the possibilities of this and would love to learn how to make echoes herself. I agree with him that in the future we will discuss options for sponsoring the ultrasound training.Do you want to help people like Donald to provide better care and support our work in Tanzania? Visit www.stichtingmountmeru.nl for more information about how you can help! "