Africa First day

11/03/08
Had our first day on placement today, and let me just clarify, scrubs and a white coat at the equator does not make for a cool morning at a hospital. In order to actually get to the hospital we had to walk for 30mins to the main road and then travel by Dala Dala to the actual hospital. The Dala Dalas are little minibuses able to hold about 14 people according to the very packed seats, although it is quite normal for 20 people to be shoe-horned into the cramped confines.

Upon arriving at the hospital, we were given a mornings introduction, basically walking around the place, being shown the male ward, while being informed that this is where the male patients are kept – frankly I was stunned - and other apparently obvious information. The trip also involved taking in the operating theatre which looked like a normal room, differing only by having two extra lights in the ceiling. Of all the differences between the West and the African operating theatres, I was not expecting to find fixed lighting in operating theatres, the general conditions in the hospitals yes, but mobile lighting was available during the Korean war if not before, I was however, reassured to see the pile of operating room wellingtons filled with disinfectant outside.

On returning from the hospital, the walk back to the house was made all the more gruelling by the continual passing of enormous trucks on the road, blowing clouds of fine dust everywhere which subsequently coat every inch of skin. In order to break up the trek, we stopped in at the Impala Hotel for ice-cream – amazingly they did good strawberry ice-cream, which I hold to be one of the hardest ice-cream flavours to get right.

As for Mayhem during this time, he has been stationed at a much closer hospital, which contains a surgical ward. Even with the hospital being closer, as is Mayhem’s usual way, he managed to return from the hospital as soon as humanly possible. We are both beginning to be able to tolerate the heat, although he is still very vocal in his complaints from underneath of his mosquito net.

The housemates we have met here are really great people, there seems to be a slight division in the house between the “newbies” who have just arrived, and the “oldies” although generally we all get on very well. We have seven medics in the house, including Mayhem and myself, and there are a plethora of nurses, there is plenty of banter, and areas to actually learn from one another.

That said at the moment there is one of the nurses has a red mark tracking up her arm from a mosquito bite which we are presently watching – we’re hoping that it is nothing serious, although Mayhem has already offer to amputate the arm should the need arise.

On that note i’m going to stop being anti-social and return to playing beach volley ball, on the balcony, in the absence of a net, and with a bundled hammock being used as the ball!!

TTFN

Kaos