Njoko Clinic

Once a month, Dr. Hla Tun visits a peripheral clinic in deeper rural South Africa. Only sisters and sirs (no doctors) service these peripheral clinics that sit on dirt roads and in towns of one hundred people. Today, the little town of Njoko heard that Dr. Hla Tun was coming and so the typically small line of patients flooded beyond the waiting room to the outside.

The Njoko Clinic provided ongoing care for TB, hypertension, and diabetes. We sat in a make shift room and used a stretcher as a desk. Amazingly nearly all the patients rolled in with three anti-hypertensive drugs. Knee pain was a common complaint, likely caused by obesity. Dr. Hla Tun treated the patients in rapid fire with the plans to live within 1 hour. The hollering from the patients foiled our attempted escape. Dr. Hla Tun could not say no and we stayed an additional 1.5 hours in order to see all the patients.