{"id":19836,"date":"2018-10-25T22:23:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T22:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19836"},"modified":"2018-10-25T22:23:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T22:23:43","slug":"the-hospital-in-cameroon-trying-to-heal-old-wounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19836","title":{"rendered":"The hospital in Cameroon trying to heal old wounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"87\">\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Balaveng, Cameroon &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong>Perched in the foggy mountains of western Cameroon, the Balaveng Wound Hospital\u00a0has a unique specialisation in Central Africa &#8211; it only treats wounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;Wounds are the ill-fated kid of medicine in Africa,&#8221; says Dr Romain<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Soumele, who founded the hospital in 2008.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">It is estimated that more than 15 million people worldwide have a chronic wound. In Cameroon&#8217;s main hospitals, doctors reject patients with chronic or infected injuries, as their treatment with insufficient equipment is lengthy, complicated and non-lucrative. This is compounded by the fact that wounds are often seen as a result of witchcraft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">At Soumele\u2019s hospital, 20-year-old ulcers, bedsores the size of a tennis ball, infected wounds coated with black necrosis and yellow fibrin are a common sight. As diabetes, HIV, sickle-cell or arterial problems complicate the healing process, the 42 in-house patients often stay there for months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span>The small team of nurses at the hospital are specifically trained to apply the right bandage to each type of wound.\u00a0<\/span>Their wounds improve only to worsen again, as the skin sluggishly grows on burgeoning flesh, and they can spend up to 180,000 CFA\u00a0<span>($330)<\/span>\u00a0a month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span>Despite the hospital&#8217;s efforts, many of its patients leave before being fully treated due to the expense, and <\/span>go back to traditional healing techniques or self-medication.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Ide Tsopbou, 35, head of the bandages section, says she often cries when patients leave without being fully healed. &#8220;You know you can do something for them but your hands are tied because they have no money left,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Sometimes, the hospital staff organises collections to help cash-stripped patients go back home. &#8220;The problem is that they always arrive here when it is already too late. Elsewhere, medical staff talks about amputation, but here, we manage to heal them,&#8221; Tsopbou says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Balaveng, Cameroon &#8211;\u00a0Perched in the foggy mountains of western Cameroon, the Balaveng Wound Hospital\u00a0has a unique specialisation in Central Africa &#8211; it only treats wounds. &#8220;Wounds are the ill-fated kid of medicine in Africa,&#8221; says Dr Romain\u00a0Soumele, who founded the hospital in 2008.\u00a0 It is estimated that more than 15 million people worldwide have a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":19837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}