Whirlwind!

Apologies to our regular blog visitors for the delay in posting but the last few weeks have been a whirlwind... Ian went to World Health Organization in Geneva for a workshop on Universal Health Coverage [ensuring all people have access to healthcare] and Patient Safety & Quality.  It was a privilege to be one of only five worldwide locations selected for this "learning laboratory" workshop and we had a very good meeting and hope much of value will result.

On the way he was able to snatch a day in Holland to see Hanna's father and other members of the family and then hop to Manchester to see Mark and visit our church TFW in Macclesfield.  Also a very brief visit to former colleagues at the hospital and a lot of phone calls to relatives and friends.  So hectic but very worthwhile...

It worked out really well that his flight back to Kigali, Rwanda, arrived only a few hours before Ruth was due to come for a Christmas visit... only problem was that Turkish Airlines proved unreliable and rude and unhelpful when she missed her connecting flight in Istanbul so ended up arriving a day later than planned.

This meant Ian and Ruth met up with Hanna on 23rd December and got to Kisiizi just in time for the staff christmas party that evening [see www.kisiizihospital.org.ug for blog post and pictures of the party].

Then we had a lovely "bring and share" meal on Christmas day after the service in a very full chapel.  On boxing day there was a more traditional meal with the European contingent so we did very well and put on a fair bit of weight...




...which we immediately lost again getting ready for the meeting yesterday, 28th, when the Prime Minister flew in by helicopter to launch a new tourism initiative... see www.kisiizihospital.org.ug for a blog post and photos of this visit.  The photo here shows the Prime Minister unveiling an artist's impression of a monument to be set up near the falls.

Now we are off for a day's break with Ruth and on to Rwanda tomorrow to take her for her return flight.
When we return on 31st, we will prepare for a Management Committee time away 2-3rd January for Strategic Planning for the year ahead...

Countdown...

Maternity on a quiet day

Lots of plates spinning at present as we prepare not only for Christmas and Ruth's visit but also for Hanna organising a maternity tea party next weekend, sorting out 50 people arriving from Mbarara on a mission here for a week and coming on the same day there is a wedding party in the Kisiizi primary school hall not to mention the continued heavy workload on maternity.
I was thinking the other day as I was cutting Hanna's hair that life can be quite busy.  And, this very morning, as I prepared Hanna's breakfast, I was mentally ticking off the things I need to do before leaving on Thursday to travel down to Kigali to catch a night flight to Nairobi to connect to a day flight to Amsterdam... then on to see relatives including Hanna's dad, then back to Schipol to fly to Manchester. Then on the following Wednesday to World Health Organization for interesting meetings in Geneva.
So at the weekend, while I was polishing Hanna's shoes, I was contemplating that my retirement is quite varied and I can't complain of boredom!
Right, having teased my dear wife I have to be honest and say she does far more for me than I ever do for her and I am so grateful!  It can be high pressure here and having such faithful and loving support is a great blessing.

Of course we have learnt over the years that we can never guess what may happen... for example about 3 weeks ago we heard that the Banyakigezi, a group of influential successful citizens from this region living in Uganda or overseas want to encourage more tourism in Kisiizi, partly relating to the history that in the past tragically many unmarried girls who became pregnant were pushed over the waterfall.  Thankfully what was a place of despair, killing and death has now become a place of hope, healing and life and we want to portray that transformation in some sort of monument.  They may be bringing around a hundred people on 28th December to visit!  There is actually a lot of interesting history here with the original flax factory building having been built by prisoners of war, and the whole story of the hydro-electricity plus a beautiful location with amazing birds...

Then into the new year we hope to have  Management Away Days to plan strategically for the coming year.

Travel log...

We have done a fair bit of travelling recently and more to come...

We went up to Kampala together for a meeting at Makerere University Guest House for members of the Uganda Maternity & Newborn Hub partnerships and for the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health Global Links Scheme.  Dr. Josephine Nantongo, our Consultant Paediatrician, came with us and did a joint presentation with Ian on Patient Safety programmes in Kisiizi.  We met up with Maryanna, our registered nurse on the Hub programme, and with Mandy, our new Hub midwife who will be with us in Kisiizi for six months.

Then last week Ian drove to Mbarara 80 miles away and then went the next day on a coach to Kampala, left his bag at a motel, and braved public transport through busy Kampala to the CORSU hospital near Entebbe.  This is a specialist facility providing expert care for orthopaedic and plastic surgery problems, especially for children.  We hope to have a Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate trips by teams from Corsu to help us with paediatric orthopaedic camps in Kisiizi.

Then Ian attended the Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau [UPMB] Council meetings the next day and in the afternoon went up to the top floor of a very posh building in central Kampala to meet with National Social Savings Fund officials.  Contributions to this scheme are similar to National Insurance in the UK.  Having understood that we were very compliant with the scheme an audit has suggested some payments for some staff had been omitted so Ian went to discuss the issues and to see how we can move it forward.

The following day was the UPMB Symposium with one or two hundred people present.  Their annual report and new strategic plan were presented and Ian gave a presentation on aspects of patient safety work in Kisiizi.  Then a group photo, then on a motorbike boda boda through the rush hour traffic to the bus park to get a coach back to Mbarara... meant I got there about midnight. Drove back to Kisiizi the next day after an informal interview with a potential senior member of Staff and then back into on-call mode as some children needed review.

Now having to think about the next trips:  Ian has been invited to Geneva for a World Health Organization meeting on 19th and 20th December and is aiming to go a couple of days earlier to fit in a short visit to family in Holland and then a quick trip to Macclesfield to see Mark.  After the Geneva conference he will fly back to Kigali and, very conveniently, will arrive there just a few hours before Ruth so they will then travel on together the next day to Kisiizi.

Snapshots...

Life in Kisiizi is very varied with so much going on all around....
each patient admitted to a ward will have an attendant to help with feeding, washing etc. so there can be large numbers of people around at times. 

Then some will just sit on the grass and have a rest if the chance arises.

Construction work continues in different areas of the hospital estate.

Here are trees felled to prepare the site for our new Mental Health Unit being sawn into planks.

We are hoping to build a further dormitory for our School of Nursing in the next year or two, and meanwhile work continues on the Mothers' Waiting Home...

 

Meanwhile the multiple types of birds are all around... such as these hammerkops:

 

The clinical work goes on 24 hours a day.  Here is our Maternity Ward, which can be frenetic.  The other day Hanna had 3 ladies all with problems needing to deliver at the same time so it can be challenging.

Attendants will arrive with food for patients, often carried in baskets on their heads in time-honoured fashion. Of course the mothers with young infants will carry them on their backs at the same time.

Numbers...

40...  the number of pineapples I bought from a road-side stall on the way back from Mbarara... most of them for our School of Nursing students who don't always get a very varied diet... in fact often they have posho and beans twice a day [posho is a maize flour porridge rather like "Ready Brek" in the UK but without the milk!]

Also bought one or two onions....

4...  the number of cardiac arrests this 6 week old girl had today...
she arrived in our out-patient/Accident & Emergency area labouring to breath and had her first arrest... then 3 more on the ward. 
I think clinically she has Down Syndrome [not diagnosed previously] and had severe pneumonia and wheeze.  She may have an underlying heart problem though we cannon hear a murmur at present.  I have just done the night round to review serious cases and happily she is much more stable now...

 5... Essentials for any good office secretary!

 

    

3... spontaneous triplets born at 4am a couple of weeks ago and all making good progress...