12. A Traumatic Day

Monday 12th November 2012

Mother with her baby

Today I tried the rice krispies for breakfast – but they were even more disappointing (and definitely more stale) than yesterday’s cornflakes, so tomorrow I will give the weetabix a go. Glad I brought some Carte Noir with me as the Ugandan coffee is certainly an acquired taste. I remembered my glasses for Chapel this morning however there was only one song (in Ugandan) plus prayers and bible readings with a translator so that took up most of the service. At the end of the service there is always time allocated for any announcements that people want to make. Whether it is a typical Monday thing but the announcements seemed to go on forever. There was a lot of information imparted about the electricity problems currently being encountered so as well as no internet access (different problem) we are having regular power cuts. They happen most evenings and sometimes throughout the day as well. Our dinner last night was enjoyed in torchlight before the electricity came back on about 9pm. We all had to stand up again and address the congregation. On Sunday it had only been Sarah and I attending but apparently there is a 3 line whip to ensure everybody attends on the first Monday of their visit. You have to say your bit in sections so that it can be translated as you go along. Hopefully that will be my last public speaking experience whilst I am here.

 

Today is when I really start to find out more about Kisiizi hospital and the difference that our fundraising, and the Nursing, Pharmacy and Radiology programmes, have been making. I am looking forward to the hospital tour that Sarah and Sam have planned for Tom and I, but at the same time I am a little apprehensive, being unsure of exactly what to expect. Our first stop is the Medical Ward to meet Sister Moreen. She is lovely and proudly shows us her office which has been achieved with Sam’s help over the past couple of years. Sam has been slowing building relationships with the right people here and then gently putting pressure on to get it built. No Estates Request forms to fill in here! The office is a very small area sectioned off from the ward using panels of rough wood with a small door cut in and a huge bolt and padlock to lock it. To me it looks like a temporary measure that would be used on a building site perhaps to section off an area to store something, but it seems that it is meets Moreen’s needs perfectly and is a huge improvement on her working from a desk in the middle of the ward.

 

The doctor’s have started their ward rounds so we are unable to see every bay in the Medical Ward as they are examining patients but from what I can see I am quite shocked. I know I have seen photos from some of the staff who have been before, and been told that every patient has to bring a carer to look after them and bring their own food, but I suppose I just wasn’t prepared for how that would translate into reality. Wards have rows of beds with metal bed frames where most of the paint has worn off, sheets and blankets in a multitude of different colours and not just on the beds but on the floors as well as this is where their relatives sleep on rolled up pieces of foam. Patients sitting or lying in various stages of rest or sleep, looking pretty helpless, hopeless and devoid of any real spark of life. I admit it was a shock to the system. I wanted to take photographs but it just seemed too intrusive. There are signs on two of the turquoise painted walls promoting male circumcision, HIV Aids prevention and encouraging you to stay faithful in marriage. On the wall opposite the window there are messages that have been written using red sticky labels saying “Happy Christmas” and “Halleluiah”. They are not messages that have been put up for Christmas 2012; these tatty greetings have clearly been welcoming patients to the Medical ward for many years. Our hospital tour continued taking in the Isolation Ward – one section of which had been barricaded off with plywood as the “Diarrhoea end” where patients with more serious infections are being treated. I learn that most of the patients in both ends of the Isolation ward are being treated for TB. I have a slight panic when I hear this as I know that my role for tomorrow is to visit all wards and measure up the mattresses. I must remember to carry my hand wash gel. On the way out of this ward we see the area where all the relatives prepare the food for the patients. Mothers with babies on their backs sit on the floor preparing the vegetables for cooking in a large outdoor brick built kitchen area with an open fire. The whole area is littered with rubbish and the smoke inhalation from the cooking can’t be good for the adults never mind the children.

 

From here we went to the Children’s Ward. What a drab depressing place this is. There is no colour, no toys, again just rows and rows of beds squashed next to each other with listless children lying there and relatives just sitting next to them staring aimlessly at nothing in particular. There is little interaction between parent and child or nurse and child and nothing at all to make their hospital stay a little more bearable. Some of the more able ones sit up a bit and can manage a smile or wave back in response to mine. I find it really hard not to get upset when I think of my three lovely granddaughters back in the UK and imagine them being subjected to these conditions. I feel like I want to get a scrubbing brush, some polyfilla and brightly coloured paint and do something practical to make this a better place, but I know it is not that easy. I don’t know how I can help but there must be something I can do for these sick children to bring a smile to their faces.

 

In most of the wards there are side rooms which are the private wards. There are single private wards some have a bathroom and some don’t; others are a double room with a curtain hanging between 2 beds. Private patients pay 20,000 shillings (£5) for the first night or 10,000 shillings (£2.50) in a shared room and the fees operate on a sliding scale with each subsequent night being a little cheaper. For ordinary patients the first night is 5,000 shillings (£1.25) and all procedures and operations have to be paid for on top of that. When you consider that an average monthly wage for a teacher is 200,000 shillings (£50) it is easy to see why people struggle to afford to pay for hospital treatment.

 

Further visits to the Surgical and Mental Health wards didn’t reveal any improvements on what we have already seen, the sights, the smells and the unbelievable poverty that some people are living in was starting to get to me. It was this point that I was actually questioning my reasons for coming. Trying to absorb it all whilst coming to terms with what I viewed as the most awful conditions that patients had to endure, was proving very traumatic.

 

It is now 11.30am and it is ‘Banana Break’. This takes place every weekday and all staff who can take a 20-30 minute break in the staff room to have a cup of tea which is accompanied by a white saucer containing 2 small bananas. This was to be my first and last cup of Ugandan tea. It is very weak and tastes like condensed milk has been added. Tomorrow I will bring a fruit teabag and do my own thing. After the break Sarah and Sam have a meeting to plan out a schedule for the fortnight of what they want to achieve, so Tom and I use the opportunity to visit the local school as Tom has a gift from a member of staff at the Countess to give to David, the Headteacher. He is in the middle of an English lesson but makes us very welcome and invites us to come to school assembly one morning. It is almost the end of playtime for the little ones and a few of them rush over to greet us. “How are you” they all ask very politely and “I’m fine” or “I’m very fine” is always their standard answer when you ask them the same question. Messages like ‘Abstain from Sex’, ‘Avoid free gifts’ and ‘Virginity is good’ appear on the external walls of the school building.

 

We have lunch at Rose Cottage and Tom is off to spend some time in Theatres whilst I have been invited by Sam and Sarah to accompany them with Sister Moreen on a trip to the Waste compound. It’s a fairly precarious walk over a bridge with no handrail, then up a steep slope (and this is the same route taken by the porters carrying all the clinical waste to be disposed of) to the top where the incinerator and placenta pit are housed. Obviously for medical people this term just rolls off the tongue but I have to admit I declined the offer to climb up further and actually look into it, however there was much celebration on the part of Sam and Sarah when they discovered the pit had been covered over with concrete and now had a removable lid for safer disposal of placentas, body parts and whatever else is disposed of in this way. I suppose I had just never thought about this aspect of hospital work. Overall Sam and Sarah were very pleased with the improvements that had been made and we met the man who was in charge of the waste compound. He was very proud of his work and allowed me to take a photo.

 

We managed to descend without incident although it must be very risky walking up there carrying waste when it has been raining. We then decided to have a look at the Generator House. We were still about 100 yards away when Jansen, they guy responsible for keeping the generator house clean came over, beaming and brandishing a set of keys. He looked delighted that we wanted to have a look in ‘his’ generator house. Dressed in a bright yellow hard hat and a yellow and blue uniform he explained to us all about the generator. I must have looked a little bit too interested as he then proceeded to take me to the back of the building and up a few steps to show me the old generator and explain the pros and cons of water versus diesel generators. I listened politely for as long as I could manage before finally extracting myself to rejoin the others.

 

We checked out the toilets at the back of the children’s ward and found some were locked and others blocked. Sarah added this to her list of things to take up with Moses, the Hospital Administrator. We had a brief meeting with Ezra the Estates Manager about a few things Sarah had seen in the laundry that needed attention, before I went back to Rose cottage just in time before the rain started. Dinner was mince, mash and veg with pineapple to follow. Not bad at all, although it was another meal by torchlight as the power had gone off again.

 

I had an early night with my book and fell asleep thinking about the mattress measuring I would be doing the next day.