Maintenance matters...

VEHICLES:
Keeping a 300 bed hospital,  a hydro-electric power company, a School of Nursing with more than 150 students, and a full Primary School together with a Community Programme on the road is challenging, especially when the roads in question are very unforgiving to vehicles.  The nearest tarmac is 18 miles away, so our local roads are all a type of gravel which is periodically "graded" - this means they are flattened by a heavy machine which scrapes the surface and compresses the gravel.  The good news is that this means that vehicles no longer get bogged down as they did in the past when we just had dirt roads which turned to mud and swamp in the rainy season.  However, the roads do become very rutted and pot-holed which means vehicles are subject to a lot of stress.  Unfortunately one of our vehicles is currently at the Toyota dealer in Kampala and it will cost a lot to put right the faults that have been identified...

BUILDINGS:
Kisiizi Hospital was founded in 1958 and used the buildings from a flax factory as its core.  These are still in use housing surgical ward patients but are in urgent need of renovation.  Here we see the old ceiling tiles have been removed in what was previously the old maternity ward, and we are replacing them and then plan to rewire the building, replaster and repaint the walls, renovate the windows and then, last but not least, put in a new floor.  The terrazo tile floors are best in terms of keeping them clean as a concrete surface gets cracked quite quickly.  Infection control is a priority so we really want to go for an option that allows thorough cleaning though this is much more expensive to put in.  We are grateful to Natalie, one of our recent medical students, who is going to do some fundraising for a new floor.  If any readers of this blog want to help we would be most grateful. Our administrator, Moses Mugume, is getting a number of quotes but we have to be careful to look at quality as well as the financial quote.

BABIES!:

Maintaining a pre-term baby's temperature is also a challenge... I smiled when I saw the clothing for this little girl born about 7 weeks early as she lay in her incubator... certainly plenty of room to grow!  We are very grateful to the individuals and groups who have faithfully sent out knitted bonnets, socks and blankets for our premature babies.  Mothers are given these to take home to keep their little infants warm.