 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
|
|---|
 Toka advising client on application of herbal medicine at his clinic. |
|---|
While Toka speaks to his patient, his son Bruhan translates some of the conversation.
Bruhan: The patient explained that for a long time he has felt a swelling and itching in his leg. Masao asked how did it start and the patient responded. Musao tells him “I’ll give you two types of medicine, one is to drink, the other is to be massaged on the leg.” He told the patient this costs this amount, and the patient said he did not come with money. Musao said “you take this and you come back, and I will give you another one. When you return, bring the money. “
.
Bruhan, responding to a question Rose posed: Rose asked Musao if he had shared this knowledge with anyone in the family. He answered yes, he gave the example of me. In the beginning, there was no writing down of this information. He sent me to school and I can write, so we have compiled a lot of information. And he is saying that he has taught me, and this year I am going to graduate as a traditional practitioner in this work. (Pointing to a child at the door listening) And even that one, that little kid, he knows some of the herbs. When we go to collect the herbs, we go tegether. For me, from childhood I wanted to be a teacher. When I graduated from secondary school I told musao I want to get a degree in teaching. He said ‘I don’t want you to be a teacher’. It hurt me, I got angry about it, but he gave me counseling and told me ‘I want you to have this knowledge that I am having as it was also provided to me. I want to provide it to you, so even if I die - because death is a natural thing that can happen any time - even if I go away, the community with have someone with my knowledge.’ With that counseling, I changed my mind and accepted what he was saying.
Rose addressing Toka: How old are you and how many chidlren do you have?
Son: Actually we are 16 children in the family, plus an older sister and brothers. He is saying he is 60.
Bruhan: Sorry we have limited time. When he starts talking about his work as a traditional healer and his work supporting people with HIV/AIDS and the support group, we can even spend 2 days or more. There are many things he has learned from Theta and from other people. He is saying as a person who never attended school, he has managed to survive and give other people his service and people even get to trust him.
We take Toka and his assistants In our van to a village for home which is some kilometers away from the office. We first visited an elderly woman with HIV/AIDS. She showed musao her arm and fingers. Musao takes out of his bag of herbal and he teaches her how to apply the medicine.
A lady comes to the door of the hut where Musao is treating the patient. She explains when Musao was in the community center teaching about HIV/AIDS she learned how to diagnose her status. She heard that we are visiting this lady here toda,y so she came to get a chance to talk to Musao. She is explaining to him that she is HIV positive and her husband died of Aids. He explains to her before you know you are HI.V you need to take a HIV bloodtest.
Rose: This lady is explaining to Musao her income generating activities. She shows him tiny fish that look dried and also some vegetables that the community come and buy.
 AIDS patient selling a few vegetables from her garden and dried fish to make a little money. |
|---|
Jamie Leigh Fish, a young American, was one of the volunteers assisting Musao. She had learned of his work on the internet and committed several months to assisting him in Uganda. Jamie gave me background on some of the patients we visited One was an elderly AIDS patient who sells vegetables from her garden to make a little money. As Jamie explained,she was getting increasing numbness so it was becoming more difficult to garden. Now they were not so sure how she could provide for herself in the future.
We moved to another hut, another of Musao’s patients. Jamie explained that this lady’s dad died of AIDS related complications and she had HIV. She had been sick for a while but has gotten much better from the care she had been receiving. She has a little baby, less than a year, who is very sick. Lots of diarreah, and won’t take food.
We move to another patient who lives hearby. Jamie explains that her dad died of AIDS related complications and she is HIV positive. She was sick for a while but has gotten much better. She has a little baby, less than a year who is very sick. Lots of diarreah, and won’t take food.
 For the first day in many months Sam was up and walking. |
|---|
Next we visited Sam. Sam is HIV positive. He had been very sick but was feeling better, and was well enough to venture outside for the first time in months.
After a discussion with his mother regarding Sam’s condition and treatment, and whether she had been administering the herbal treatments prescribed by Musao during his absence, Musao began to treat Sam’s skin with his herbs. He instructs the mother that when he takes a bath she should apply this herb. They know it and can pick it themselves. As Masao applies herbs to the child’s belly he continues to explais what types of drinks the boy should have, how often he should eat, that he should have soup from the small fish, and it is good to give him some juice and other liquids.
 Toka watching Sam as he tries to stand after giving him some herbal medication. |
|---|
Bruhan: In every community that we have clients, we have community-based volunteers who help the support group to know the conditions of its clients. If we leave today, they stay monitoring the condition of the clients. If anyone’s condition is worsoning, they run to us at our office and tell us person needs help.
We move to another hut. This patient is paralyzed, the numbness is a viral infection in her spinal cord. We move into the room of the patient.
Bruhan: The first time we were here, we promised to bring her some medicine.
Musao helps the patient to rise and brings out some herbs
 |
|---|
The first time we were here she had malaria and we suspected this was from mosquito bites. So we brought mosquito netting for her.
Masao calls the patients relatives who live with her to see as he prepared the herbs. The leaves are fresh and he is trying to explain how to mix them. The herb helps the joints and the tissue. He also shows how to massage. Masao first soaks the herbs in water, then rubs the wet herbs on her skin.
 |
|---|
Bruhan: When we left she was all right, but then she developed some complications. One of our volunteers came to our office to let us know. Masao asked the patient whether she had been taking the drugs that he sent. The answer is no.
He tells the family we will be giving them some food supplements.
Jamie explains there is a type of virus that attacks the spinal cord and the brain itself. “That is why we see a lot of paralysis in the legs. Many patients are disoriented, and eventually it works into an organic brain disorder. They don’t know who their caretakers are. They get confused and angry, dementia. We don’t see as much of that in the US because when patients are on ARVs, they don’t get as many of the preliminary viruses. Here, everybody has got it, and that is what we see the most. They will only give patients with HIV anti-retroviral drugs if the CD4 cell count is really low and they are in great need, instead of giving it to them when they are still in a healthy state. Those who are the worse off get the meds, which is strange. “
Jamie continued, “One woman on ARVs went to the clinic for birth control. Her husband refused to use a condom and she didn’t want any more children. I don’t know what they gave her, but she got really sick. “
“This one has not been our client in the past but our support group identified her as HIV positive and she said that she wanted to join the support group. Musao asks her what are some of her problems, and she is saying I sometimes get sick. My husband died, I am taking care of my children myself but I always get sick. When I heard about your support group I wanted to join you guys.”
 Bruhan, volunteer Jamie Lee Fish taking notes, Toka, with patient and baby. |
|---|
Masao asks more question: Do the children go to school? Who pays for school?
Rose: What annoys Masao is that when he gives them medicine they don’t take it. They didn’t even know where it is. And then he was saying, if you don’t take the medicine, you can’t know how the improvement has gone. So he is very interested in how the medicine helps with the improvement and how it is administered by the home based caregivers.
So the first group were asking for more medicine and they were quite poor. Musao told them to come to his clinic and they accepted as the patient is improving steadily. The mother of the little boy, Sam, also was administering the medicine to increase her son’s appetite and also to treat his skin rash.
It was where this lady was paralyzed that they were not administering the medicine. So Musao concluded that maybe the home-based carergivers were tired of her, or she herself was tired of her life.