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For us people living in the Nordic countries having access to single-use catheters is natural, but in large parts of the world the possibility to use CIC is extremely limited. Many young people with spinal injuries in poor countries die prematurely due to kidney failure.
Hassan Balhas, a 34 year old man living in southern Lebanon, has been lucky. A group of friends from Norway provides him with regular shipments of LoFric, an aid that has changed his life and perhaps also saved it.
Hassan is wheelchair-bound and paralyzed from the chest down since 1989 when he got shot at a military checkpoint in the harbour city of Tyr. Ever since then he has used an uridom and pressed his bladder to empty it. This has led to many urinary infections with high fever and a more or less constant medication with antibiotics, which is sold without need for prescription at pharmacies in Lebanon.
Physiotherapist Sigrid Ann Mortensen has worked in Lebanon on a number of occasions. On a mission for the norwegian humanitarian help organization NORWAC she got to know Hassan in 1994. Since then she has visited him every year. When she visited him in Lebanon in the summer of 2007 she also brought a number of LoFric-samples with her. Here are her own words about the reunion.
“We visit Hassan in Siddiquine, one of many villages that was heavily bombarded during the war in the summer of 2006. The surroundings are no longer recognizable to me even though I have been here many times before. Almost all of the houses around the home of the Balhas family are in ruins. The family house is also very damaged. There are many cracks in the walls and in the roof, and all windows and doors are missing.
During the war in the summer of 2006 Hassan and his family were forced to flee from their home, a situation which made Hassan´s urinary problems even worse than before. He had only three uridoms left when the family were forced to flee, which made the situation even worse.
Normally Hassan changes his uridom on a daily basis and suddenly he only had access to three. No one could help him to find more, and after two weeks when he had used his last uridom for ten whole days, he had pain and sores on his penis.
Since december 2006 Hassan has had urinary infections twice a month. His use of antibiotics has been huge. During my visit I want to inform Hassan and his urologist about the advantages of CIC.
Since Hassan has two strictures in his urethra only a soft hydrophilic catheter can pass the strictures. A nurse is with us by telephone from Norway when we go through the technique of CIC. Hassan and I are smiling and making jokes when we are handling the catheters and reading brochures, and relatives and neighbours are watching with a great deal of interest. The first time is a little bit difficult but the second attempt is a success and Hassan is very pleased with the result, since all he had tried before has been stiff plastic catheters.
Both Hassan and his urologist are very positive to CIC but the big question is how to handle the cost of catheters in such a poor part of the world. The solution for Hassan was the support from a group of friends in Norway and a monetary contribution from another Norwegian friend. All together the result is that he now can use CIC and LoFric. Since he started with CIC he does not have any more urinary infections and he does not have to use his uridom. He catheterizes himself with LoFric five times a day and his life has gotten a whole lot easer to live.”
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