Excerpt from draft of "Apostle to the Pygmies – The Doctor Jerry Galloway Story”
A few weeks later, I left the warm confines of the formation house and traveled to Kimbanseke to live with two CICM brothers and work at a clinic run by CICM sisters. Kimbanseke was a new “suburb” of Kinshasa, but the living conditions were similar to those of the rural country, as there was no electricity or running water. The Sister’s clinic was the only one in the area and served 50,000 people. The clinic was divided into three sections.
The maternity ward handled 160 deliveries each month and held daily prenatal clinics. The nutrition and well-baby clinic monitored 3,000 children under three years of age every three months. The nutrition center had thirty beds for severely malnourished children. Since Kabuika’s death on December 14th, they received equipment to give transfusions. The third component was the dispensary, which saw 200 patients a day. However, over the last week they had seen 400 patients a day due to an epidemic of the flu, which caused devastating pneumonia in children under the age of five. On average, four children died each day. The clinic was run by three Sisters who were nurses, in addition to twenty Zairian nurses, lab techs and aids.
Each day, the clinic opened at 7:30 a.m. and began with prayer. Lessons were given on hygiene, nutrition and other health topics. The nurses would see patients all day, six days a week, in what seemed to be a never-ending flow. I returned home tired at the end of each day. Then, for two hours every single night, several high school boys would come over and teach me Lingala.
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