La Sierra doc brings life-saving medical devices to Kenyan women

Concerned that the items would not arrive in time for her trip, she purchased three of the 54-centimeter, absorbent silicone catheter devices called Bakri uterine balloons from a regional institution at $227 each, and acquired a non-sterile device for teaching purposes from a local representative of the manufacturer, Cook Medical. The balloons are used to put pressure against bleeding vessels during life-threatening post-partum hemorrhaging, a condition caused by the inability of the uterus to contract following childbirth. It is a common cause of death among women in developing countries. 

Hansberger, a physician with La Sierra University’s student health services has operated an obstetrics-gynaecology practice in Loma Linda for 19 years and has successfully used the devices with her patients. Her goal was to help save the lives of Kenyan women by providing as many of the devices as possible to local health organizations and by instructing African health workers in the use of the balloons.

The aid mission was the first trip to Africa for Hansberger, a La Sierra University alumna and former 12-year university trustee, and her husband, former San Bernardino County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger. It would prove a life-changing experience through miraculous intervention and personal insight into the immense hardships facing Kenyans and the rest of the Third World, and set the stage for future work that addresses the great need.

Three days before the couple’s 24-hour flight to Nairobi on Nov. 3, Karen Hansberger received the news for which she had been waiting – Cook Medical informed her that the company had approved her humanitarian aid request for a donation of 50 balloons, a $12,000 value, and would ship the devices via overnight delivery to her home.

“I did the dance of joy,” Hansberger said. “Then I had a moment of panic wondering how we would get them to Africa and through customs at that late hour. It was a miracle that we got the balloons, so I should have known that it would all work out.”

Once the products arrived, the Hansbergers began packing in earnest. “We took almost no clothes. Every other inch of suitcase was chockablock full of balloons,” said Karen Hansberger.

The Hansbergers, together with 28 other medical professionals and lay people traveled to Kenya with international development organization, A Better World Canada. A Better World is based in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada and comprised entirely of volunteers. It dedicates all project donations to projects, with operations funded separately, its website states. A Better World is governed by the board of the College Heights Adventist Church at Canadian University College and has worked in Kenya for more than 25 years building schools, clinics, water systems and other projects.

After a surprisingly smooth check in through international customs in Nairobi, the couple spent the next three weeks working with the aid team to provide medical training, medications and services to rural Kenyan health clinics and hospitals.

The team journeyed by vans across 700 or so miles of Kenya, traveling through the tea country to the savannah and into a region called Mara. They slept in beds in tent camps and in hotels. Altogether they held 12 medical clinics and treated some 1,600 patients in Segera, Ndanai, Olkoroi, Sopa and Talek. They visited two orphanages, a hospital in Ndanai and a hospital in Nanyuki that handles 300 baby deliveries a month with only one delivery room and four maternity beds. 

Karen Hansberger provided the Nanyuki hospital with 15 Bakri balloons and training on use of the devices for 27 health care staff members during a joint session with a team pediatrician on maternal and child health issues. She distributed the remainder of the balloons during a second day of training for 14 regional healthcare workers representing 10 clinics. The team attached to each packaged balloon four tablets of Cytotec, a medicine used to make the uterus contract and stop post-partum hemorrhaging. White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles donated 300 Cytotec tablets for the mission and Loma Linda University Medical Center supplied another 200 tablets at cost.

Physicians in the United States administer drugs to stop post-partum hemorrhaging, use the Bakri balloon, or perform surgery including hysterectomies, but such resources are largely unavailable in rural Africa. Without proper medical aid, women suffering from the condition can bleed to death within 30 minutes or less. Even if the bleeding subsides, too much hemorrhaging can cause anemia that saps the mother’s energy and greatly reduces the quantity and quality of breast milk. 

Dennis Hansberger supported the busy clinic operations by directing patients and taking them from the triage nurse to see the physician, the pharmacist, or the eyeglass station. He inspected building projects underway and water systems. He also evaluated vegetable garden projects. “I came away with an appreciation for how content the Kenyans are with the day they have been given despite their lack of resources,” he said. Hansberger added that he would like to provide future assistance helping the Kenyan people develop reliable, clean water resources and clean air in a country where cities are polluted from diesel fumes and poorly ventilated homes choke with smoke from cooking fires.

Karen Hansberger learned about A Better World and its outreach projects while attending La Sierra’s TEDxLaSierraUniversity event in April where its co-founder Eric Rajah was among keynote speakers. Acting on a long-held desire to join a humanitarian aid project and with her practice closed while she undertakes a sabbatical, Hansberger signed up for A Better World’s Kenya mission and asked her husband to join her. “I had always wanted to do this kind of trip, but when you work for yourself it is impossible to take off that much time,” Hansberger said. 

While researching health care issues in Kenya in preparation for the aid mission, Hansberger read about the country’s high maternal mortality rate with 34% of deaths attributed to post-partum hemorrhaging. She also read about the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals which include improving maternal health and specifically reducing the maternal mortality ratio by 75%, by 2015.

“The more I researched the U.N.’s goals and Kenyan health problems, the more I realized that these balloons are uniquely suited to a Third World problem. They are a way to buy time to transport a patient to a hospital for help,” Hansberger said.

The Hansbergers’ visit to Africa opened their hearts and minds to the suffering experienced by so many Kenyans who face their challenges with courage and a joyful nature. They visited with children at the orphanages whose toes stuck out of their shoes, and heard about one 4-year-old orphan boy who was found rummaging through garbage looking for food to feed to his younger brother and sister.

The couple met people who walked 40 kilometers across the Tanzanian border to receive basic health care. One young boy walked 10 kilometers alone to the Segura mission clinic hoping to obtain eyeglasses so he could read his schoolwork. They heard the stories of Juma, a village clinical officer with a nurse practitioner’s education who struggles with inadequate supplies, medication and transportation to help women in childbirth. They witnessed the prevalence of large families burdened with poverty and ill health, and the ravages of the AIDS epidemic.

They also saw breath-taking African skies awash with clouds and vibrant color. And they observed lions, elephants and other game wandering the savannah, beautiful to behold, yet deadly to many people living in the area.

“The need is so huge, it dwarfs you. Where do you start? Where do you begin?” said Karen Hansberger. “It breaks your heart.”

During their trip, the Hansbergers met a boy around age 12 named Moseka whose father had donated land upon which a school in Sopa was built by A Better World Canada. The father died from AIDS as had the family’s mother previously. The family’s oldest son, Charles, left school while in the 11^th grade to assume responsibility of his siblings and now has 16 children in his care. The Hansbergers decided to sponsor Moseka for a total cost of about $500 a year to cover school tuition and expenses.

And they couldn’t forget the orphan children’s wrong-sized and battered shoes. Upon returning home the last week of November, the Hansbergers told their family members to make donations in lieu of Christmas presents to A Better World’s shoe fund which provides proper footwear for the children in the two orphanages they visited -- St Anne’s Orphanage and East Africa Mission Orphanage.

“I think the thing both Dennis and I took away from Kenya was that our money makes such an impact there,” Hansberger said. “If we only realized the power we have to change the world, to change lives.”

The team attached evaluation forms to each Bakri balloon package and plans to collect the data through Juma, their Kenyan friend and colleague to determine the effectiveness of the balloons. “If we can show potential, it is my hope to go to the U.N. and foundations to support a larger roll out of a project,” said Hansberger. “I was really impressed by the healthcare providers in Kenya.  They lack resources and are stretched too thin, but they work hard to save lives and need support. 

We need to provide the Third World with some of our first world tools to impact maternity mortality and child mortality under age 5.  Otherwise, we are just asking them to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”