Apologies for the long delay in posting new entries but our internet has been off for many days and unreliable when it reappears...
Life remains full with a mix of things filling each day and, sometimes, night.
Hanna has been liaising with the Guest House staff helping organise the new rooms needed for all the visitors which required refurbishment and painting of one end of the house we will move to. Then trying to get to grips with the list of medical students booked for electives which had been rather confusing as it didn't tally with the paper version but hopefully now getting sorted.
The maternity ward has been overcrowded, partly due to some other hospitals in our region not functioning well so patients are choosing to travel here. The result is unsatisfactory as it is not possible to offer good nursing care when so many people are present [each mother will usually have an attendant to support her as the Hospital does not provide meals etc and the relatives have to care for the patients other than the administration of medicines, dressings, observations etc that the nurses do]. The plan is to build a Mothers Hostel for those low-risk ladies waiting to go into labour. The hostel will probably take about 9 - 12 months to build, funding is being provided by Kisiizi Partners. In the meantime we are planning to use the old operating theatres to fulfill this function so Hanna has been busy helping sort out the equipment that had been dumped there - sadly in a real state of chaos which was sad to see. So now, after a lot of hard work, the area is much clearer and the equipment has been moved to areas where hopefully it can be put to good use.
Ian has continued to do ward rounds in general paediatrics and neonates. Back to doing the drips again [back in UK my registrars or specialist nurses do them all!] and having to use a few tricks of the trade when asked to sort out the baby who everyone else has tried to cannulate and has a haemoglobin of only 6 and needs a blood transfusion NOW! Ummm. The usual sad cases as well as happy outcomes. One young infant probably had an underlying congenital abnormality of chest/blood vessels causing respiratory problems but we don't have fancy things like CT scans, angiograms, echocardiograms etc to work out the underlying pathology so have to guess.
Today I preached in the morning service - its Martyrs' day remembering those who were killed at Namugongo for their faith. Afterwards we were relaxing with a coffee when I was asked to go to see a premature baby admitted aged 5 days from a town about 2 hours drive away. The baby was in poor condition, cold and septic and in spite of us providing glucose iv, antibiotics, oxygen etc it was too late and we had to watch the parents come to terms with the loss of their firstborn. Very sad as if they had had the baby here or had at least been able to come earlier we could probably have helped them...
On the admin side lots of meeting trying to sort out a whole range of issues. Yesterday we had a Finance Committee with two members of the Board of Governors coming. It went well, as we had pushed to get our QuickBooks accounting software up to date and to analyse the figures to date so had a detailed print out of the situation. Overall fairly promising but need to see how it plays out to the end of the financial year which here is 30th June.
Sadly we had to dismiss one employee found deliberately falsifying receipts. We are checking a few other areas of concern. It reflects a period of drift in Kisiizi with inadequate accountability and too much laxity in some arrangements. It is good that the new management team is working well together to try and move things forward positively. I will address the staff on Thursday morning as a follow up to the Management team meeting due on Wed afternoon and hopefully we will lay out the plans for the Hospital in the next few months.
Well, our holiday is nearly over and we fly back to UK next Monday ready for work and talks both in Macclesfield and then for the Royal College in London on 14th. Then a week gap before the Christian Medical Fellowship Developing Health Course in London...
thanks for all the messages of support and the prayers, much appreciated.
Life remains full with a mix of things filling each day and, sometimes, night.
Hanna has been liaising with the Guest House staff helping organise the new rooms needed for all the visitors which required refurbishment and painting of one end of the house we will move to. Then trying to get to grips with the list of medical students booked for electives which had been rather confusing as it didn't tally with the paper version but hopefully now getting sorted.
The maternity ward has been overcrowded, partly due to some other hospitals in our region not functioning well so patients are choosing to travel here. The result is unsatisfactory as it is not possible to offer good nursing care when so many people are present [each mother will usually have an attendant to support her as the Hospital does not provide meals etc and the relatives have to care for the patients other than the administration of medicines, dressings, observations etc that the nurses do]. The plan is to build a Mothers Hostel for those low-risk ladies waiting to go into labour. The hostel will probably take about 9 - 12 months to build, funding is being provided by Kisiizi Partners. In the meantime we are planning to use the old operating theatres to fulfill this function so Hanna has been busy helping sort out the equipment that had been dumped there - sadly in a real state of chaos which was sad to see. So now, after a lot of hard work, the area is much clearer and the equipment has been moved to areas where hopefully it can be put to good use.
Ian has continued to do ward rounds in general paediatrics and neonates. Back to doing the drips again [back in UK my registrars or specialist nurses do them all!] and having to use a few tricks of the trade when asked to sort out the baby who everyone else has tried to cannulate and has a haemoglobin of only 6 and needs a blood transfusion NOW! Ummm. The usual sad cases as well as happy outcomes. One young infant probably had an underlying congenital abnormality of chest/blood vessels causing respiratory problems but we don't have fancy things like CT scans, angiograms, echocardiograms etc to work out the underlying pathology so have to guess.
Today I preached in the morning service - its Martyrs' day remembering those who were killed at Namugongo for their faith. Afterwards we were relaxing with a coffee when I was asked to go to see a premature baby admitted aged 5 days from a town about 2 hours drive away. The baby was in poor condition, cold and septic and in spite of us providing glucose iv, antibiotics, oxygen etc it was too late and we had to watch the parents come to terms with the loss of their firstborn. Very sad as if they had had the baby here or had at least been able to come earlier we could probably have helped them...
On the admin side lots of meeting trying to sort out a whole range of issues. Yesterday we had a Finance Committee with two members of the Board of Governors coming. It went well, as we had pushed to get our QuickBooks accounting software up to date and to analyse the figures to date so had a detailed print out of the situation. Overall fairly promising but need to see how it plays out to the end of the financial year which here is 30th June.
Sadly we had to dismiss one employee found deliberately falsifying receipts. We are checking a few other areas of concern. It reflects a period of drift in Kisiizi with inadequate accountability and too much laxity in some arrangements. It is good that the new management team is working well together to try and move things forward positively. I will address the staff on Thursday morning as a follow up to the Management team meeting due on Wed afternoon and hopefully we will lay out the plans for the Hospital in the next few months.
Well, our holiday is nearly over and we fly back to UK next Monday ready for work and talks both in Macclesfield and then for the Royal College in London on 14th. Then a week gap before the Christian Medical Fellowship Developing Health Course in London...
thanks for all the messages of support and the prayers, much appreciated.
