Report from Dr. Shumpert
Dr. Cindy Shumpert, Vice President of the George Faile Foundtion, has just returned from Nalerigu and shares about her experience. Check out her stories and photos…
I just returned from my second trip to BMC this year… what an awesome ministry! Even though it is crazy busy, I always feel that there is a reason for me to be there. At night, going to make rounds, you walk through the compound (about a 10 minute walk), and I always feel that Jesus walks this path with me. I know that despite all the ups and downs with the hospital, it is MEANT to be there, and to serve the people of the area (and surrounding areas, sometimes from not so near).
For example…
In January, Dr. Christian Heesch (a volunteer Cardiologist from Alabama) and I tended to a small girl who had fallen from a tree a week earlier, on her head. The day before admission, she started having seizures, and the day of admission, became unconscious. We determined she likely had a subdural hematoma, bleeding in the brain, that could not be managed at BMC. We helped the father financially travel with his daughter by ambulance to the government hospital in Tamale, 2½ hours away. A week later, he somehow found us at the guest house late one afternoon, to tell us that his daughter had died. He was not upset, though, and came to thank us for the care she received at BMC. He was a Christian, and knew his daughter was in heaven. He paid us with a chicken, and some yams!
Many of the children I saw were twins, what a handful in a land where everything is hard to come by, but the mothers just seem to manage.
I can’t say enough about the true ministry of Dr. Lynn Coppola and her family. They are such a bright spot on the compound… Lynn LOVES her patients, and it shows! She takes awesome care of all she comes in contact with, and is a great teacher as well. If you visit BMC… take them some peanut butter!
God bless all who have gone and will go to BMC to minister.
Please pray for the future of BMC and all who work there. Pray for Christian, mission-minded Ghanaian doctors to find their way to BMC to practice.
Cindy Shumpert MD
VP George Faile Foundation