CerviScope

Check it out at www.familyhm.org/PortableColposcopy.pdf.

The CerviScope is a portable colposcope which will allow many women in developing countries to be screened for cervical cancer, and will help save lives.

Medifree is pleased to sponsor a CerviScope for Dr. Tarek Meguid. His writing about his work in Malawi with women, along with Paul Farmer's work, inspired the creation of Medifree, so this is a return gift.

Thanks to Family Health Ministries (especially Dr. David Walmer, Kathy Walmer, and Jaqueline Ndirangu) for making this possible!

MEATPACKING REFUGEE HANDS

These are the swollen hands of a refugee from Chin State, Burma. He supports his large family by working in a meatpacking plant, as do many other refugees here in Michigan. He must use a knife that is the wrong size for his grasp, through his eight-hour shift, sometimes 6 days a week, in extremely cold conditions. He doesn't want to complain, because he is scared to lose his job.

A young Karen refugee woman also works at this meat packing plant. Her job, again eight hours a day, six days a week, is to use her left arm to grab gobs of fat and throw them into an overhead bin. She can only use her left arm because her right arm is congenitally amputated a bit below the elbow.

Medifree has partnered with her church to obtain a prosthesis for her. She does have health coverage through the meatpacking plant, but her co-pay is a whopping 25%. We will be posting updates so you can share in her happiness as she finally gets her arm.

If you haven't heard about the Karen people, please check out http://www.khrg.org/ and http://www.freeburmarangers.org/. They are a minority people in Burma who are being systematically hunted down and killed by the Burmese army. It is an ongoing tragedy that for some reason rarely if ever makes it into the world's consciousness. Maybe because the Karen have no oil or other earthly riches.