Tracing Patients in rural Africa
1996; Elsevier BV; Volume: 348; Issue: 9034 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s0140-6736(96)05130-6
ISSN1474-547X
Autores Tópico(s)Global Health and Surgery
Resumo“She's not here, but try that blue house on the hill over there”. So said the principal of a school in Eastern Pondoland. We were looking for a patient we had not seen for 8 years. We drove slowly, the wheels balanced on narrow rails of dry mud spanning deep furrows. At the blue house we were directed over the hill and had to walk down to our patient's home. A girl with a red jersey ran to the bottom of the valley and after a few minutes we could see the bright red spot hurrying back up to the huts accompanied by three adults. There was my patient, well and working in the fields. She was delighted to see me and I was able to examine her in her home and establish that she had no constrictive pericarditis. She agreed to attend the nearest hospital for a chest X-ray and told us that she could walk there more easily across country than we could travel by car over the bad roads.
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