19. Starting my second week

Monday 19th November 2012

 

The Round Houses

I am awake early so get up at 6am. I go to make a coffee and realise I have left it at the Round House as we went there after dinner last night so have to settle for a lemon and ginger tea instead. I’m going to use the time before breakfast to write up a bit more of my blog as I still have to finish my diary entry for Thursday – the day of my visit to the Community – which is turning out to be quite a long one as some of you will have read by now. I nip to the loo with my torch as it is still dark outside and the ground is pretty uneven outside the back door. The one time I have not got any tissues in my dressing gown pockets turns out to be the time the loo paper has run out. Luckily I am only going for a ‘short call’.

 

Walking to Chapel this morning I can see that there is already a really big crowd on benches outside the Outpatients Department. As part of the service we have a really long bible reading and I am wishing that I had arrived early enough to get a wall seat. We have a song and Hannah offers to share her hymn book – I do my best but it is difficult to know how to pronounce the words never mind trying to fit them to a tune I don’t know! We then listen to a beautiful song harmonised by 3 student nurses. There are various announcements welcoming the new student nurses to the School of Nursing which is now becoming very well known not only throughout Uganda, but internationally as well. Doctor Rachel is welcomed back as she has been away for about 8 weeks. A wedding announcement is made for a couple who are getting married on 8th December and it appears that everybody in the hospital is receiving an invite. WE also get the welcome announcement that the patient who died last week did not have the Marburg virus so that is a relief to everybody. The nursing team who looked after him are thanked for their care and professionalism and everybody is reminded to be vigilant and to continue operating the triage system, isolating patients as necessary.

 

I get back to Rose Cottage and Philip is washing the floor by hand with a bowl and a cloth – they really do work hard in the guest house to make sure everybody is looked after. It might be basic but it is cosy and you are made to feel very welcome. I ask how his new baby daughter is doing and he says...fine, crying in the night but ok otherwise. I meet Tom who has not been to Chapel this morning and he tells me he has a bit of an upset stomach.....so that’s where all the loo paper went!

 

Edson in the IT Department

I call up to see Edson in the IT Dept to ask if he can sort my computer out, it is driving me mad! Whilst I am in the office, Night arrives and reiterates her thanks for my buying the dress for her. It appears she has already made that treacherous journey back to the village where we had lunch in the ‘hotel’ just so that she can buy the dress she tried on. I assumed she would wait until she was next in the area, but apparently not. She tells me she saw her husband this weekend and he very much admired the dress and she told him her friend from England had bought it for her. I was thinking again about my day out in the community last week and something I didn’t put in my blog that day was coming home and feeling a little bit (on a much smaller scale obviously) how I Imagine the people featured on ‘Secret Millionaire’ must feel.

 

I pop back to the children’s ward as there are a couple of beds still to measure. I meet a lovely little girl aged two and a half called Deeana who was brought in the previous day very distressed but happily she is a lot more lively today and happy to pose for photos. I also see a boy with burns to the lower part of his body; obviously in pain but again, happy to smile for the camera. I come out of that building and see all the freshly washed blue hand towels being put out to dry. This is a new initiative introduced as part of the Infection Control programme that Sam has been helping to implement since first coming to Kisiizi. Her visits are funded by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and another of her achievements has been to get all the staff to use hand gel. Initially this was brought over from the UK on visits but the Kisiizi Pharmacy team have now learned how to make their own and are able to refill the bottles that are on the wards as well as the small ones carried around by nurses. Tomorrow Sam will be undertaking an audit to ensure the practices are still being adhered to.

 

During banana break I meet Angela in the staff room and she tells me she has just received her first letter – posted from the UK on 14th October! Sarah returns from her duties for the morning – checking through the Maternity notes to ensure all the Caesarean Sections have been recorded as she is doing an audit later in the week and this information will form part of it. Tom doesn’t come for break as he is busy in Theatre and Haley, Carolyn and Beccy are all in a Pharmacy meeting. Carolyn has been expecting a visit since she arrived from Michael, the Chief Executive of the company that installed the Pharmacy IT programme some time ago. Michael is coming from Kampala (a 10 hour journey) and Carolyn in concerned that if he doesn’t arrive soon she is not going to be able to achieve what she had hoped during her two week visit. There appears to be some resistance from the Kisiizi Pharmacy staff to use this new stock control system and Carolyn is unsure whether it is a case of lack of understanding, ability or just resistance to change.

 

After break Sarah and I go to Rehab, not to check in, but to meet the staff and for me to get more of an understanding what goes on there. However there is a mix up with the meeting time and Royce who we are hoping to meet, is not there. We cross over to the single storey building opposite and go inside to measure the beds in the bedrooms. This is where parents stay over when the children are having a course of physiotherapy, or adult patients can stay if they are receiving occupational therapy. Many people don’t get the therapy they need because it all has to be paid for and for some it is a choice between having treatment and feeding the family, so food comes first. Many patients travel up to 10 kms to get to the hospital, usually on foot – even pregnant women. Occasionally you see a patient arriving on a home-made stretcher being carried in by his or her relatives.

As I walk back up the road for lunch I see a boy of about 8 or 9 wearing a faded yellow sweatshirt with BROWNIES printed across his chest. He is wearing it with red shorts, a blue knitted hat and flip flops. It is definitely a case of anything goes here in terms of fashion, and I remember last week when I walked to Upper Kisiizi, I saw a child wearing a ski jacket (with the hood up) playing next to a child in T shirts and shorts. For the ladies it is often a case of the brighter the better. Often they have several pieces of different coloured patterned material draped around them as tops or skirts and although nothing matches or co-ordinates, it somehow doesn’t look odd. However I’m not sure it is a look I could successfully pull off.

 

It’s fish pie again for lunch which I just don’t fancy, so I have a piece of toast an peanut butter instead ( I only found out during a chance conversation they have peanut butter so have missed out on that for the last week!) . Afterwards, I walk back to the staff room and on the way see the field on the left being cut. No lawnmower here though – it is all done by hand with a machete and long stick. The stick is used at an angle by the guy cutting the grass to steady himself whilst he bends over to cut the grass in a sweeping motion. It looks like back breaking work. I see Tom walking back to Rose Cottage for a late lunch and this reminds me I have not told you much about him yet. Tom, 21, is currently a support worker in Theatres at the Countess but wants to be a Doctor and has recently applied to Medical School. He is in the only male amongst our group of 7 and to fair he has coped well with us all. At the airport we had all been through security once and then Tom was pulled again to have his bags checked, so Beccy said it was probably because he was a young boy. He wasn’t keen on that tag so we teased him and said he would have to earn some ‘Man Points’ during the trip and we would consider reclassifying him. He’s earned several during the first week but then lost 2 earlier today when he mentioned that he had brought his pencil case with him. He also lost a point for ordering a Pina Colada and not a beer at the bar at Mweya, although he did earn several points for spotting the first elephant. He will certainly earn some more today if he manages to eat a plate of the fish pie!

 

I meet up with Sam in the afternoon so that she can show me what she wants me to do on the anti-biotic audit. Entering data on an Excel spreadsheet is not my favourite job but obviously I have offered to help out wherever I am needed so can’t be too fussy. It’s 4.30pm by now and so I tell her I will start in the morning as I want to walk back to the village to see if I can get more material for the dressmaker Jocelyn who I am meeting tomorrow.