Doctor, Doctor!

Yes, two doctors in the house now Mark has successfully completed his PhD at University of Reading. 

He had his oral examination on 18th December and passed with flying colours so he can now relax for Christmas.

He is working teaching undergraduate students Chemistry and seems to be enjoying this role greatly.  He has been asked to help write a textbook so that is a new venture for him.

Teacher, Teacher!

We are also very proud of Ruth who has survived another term teaching in a school in Islington while at the same time working for a Masters with Homerton College, Cambridge.  So life is busy for her but she has done very well.

All together now...

We are very happy to have been able to arrange a brief trip back to UK for Christmas so will be with Mark and Ruth and then we all go for a 3-night visit to Holland to see the family there before we return to Kisiizi flying out on 3rd January for a further six months.  After that we are not sure how things will work out.... so watch this space!

Ends of the earth...

It seems that more and more countries are hearing about Kisiizi!  We have just had our first application for an elective attachment from a medical student in Iceland!

Kiwi Invasion:

We have enjoyed a good New Zealand contingent with two trainee midwives, Natasha and Katy, joining us for five weeks and then Nadia, an experienced neonatal nurse, coming up from Kisoro to help us for a month or so.  Then Charlie, a psychiatrist from New Zealand with his wife Cecelia, originally from Chile, have joined us for a couple of months - she is a photo-journalist and psychologist.  We also welcomed Lesley, a manager with CMS New Zealand, for a brief visit.

Beth, a trainee phyiotherapy student, joined us from USA and we had medical students from Germany as well as UK so a really nice international mix.  Add to this Ugandans coming from different parts of the country, some unable to speak the local Rukiga dialect, and you will appreciate the richness of the mix of people working together.

Visitors:

We also enjoyed a visit by our World Health Organization country director and his team plus the District Health Officer from Kabale.  They were impressed by what Kisiizi is  doing and we hope the visit will lead to more interaction in future and the spread of our patient safety programmes.

Importantly we also welcomed members of our Board of Governors and were happy to have the externally audited accounts available up to the 30th June 2014 that were duly approved.  There will be some follow-up meetings to look at our 5-year Strategic Plan and the Terms & Conditions of Service and  Constitution so these are important bits of work to finalise.

One way Kisiizi has received publicity is to be included in a Cultural Museum near to Mbarara

Stre@mline

Ian is working with Rimpscom, an IT company in Mbarara, on the Stre@mline computer software programme that he had developed in Macclesfield.  This is because the existing IT package in Kisiizi has proved frustrating as it does not have the functionality we need and has proved impossible to upgrade or edit.  Stre@mline is an integrated programme that follows the patient journey and incorporates important patient safety principles.  Management have now given approval for Stre@mline to be piloted in out-patients and if this goes well we will extend it systematically to the wards.  If we achieve good functionality we will install it in a sister hospital in Kabale and if both units have a successful outcome then we will aim to write it up and make it more widely available at a low price appropriate for places like Kisiizi.  If it works out well, it could be used "to the ends of the earth"....
The programme will provide much more accurate data as all the information is stored in an underlying SQL database.  The programme uses a browser front-end interface so its easy to learn how to use the system.

Feel like a walk?

Join us for an hour's walk up the path behind Kisiizi up the hills to look at the area and to look back down on Kisiizi nestling at the head of a valley...

"Rent a crowd" is always immediately available!

meet with us some of the lovely children who seem to be able to spot us coming very rapidly.  You will note how we live in a very poor community.

a typical homestead on a hill side with banana plantations around

 

making new friends

Children have to work to help their families, here they are collecting firewood for cooking, this is relatively light work compared to fetching water from springs which can be very hard work.

Here looking back to Kisiizi we see how it lies in the head of a valley in the Kigezi highlands.  The hospital is about 5,500 feet above sea level so although near the equator the climate is generally pleasant and not too humid.

Of course, being in hills means we can get a lot of rain but sometimes the clouds themselves are beautiful to behold...

 

typical homestead with corrugated iron roof and mud walls

spot the boy high in the tree...

There are more plantations of trees as economically timber is valuable

Hello again!

 As we return towards Kisiizi we see the hospital laid out before us.  The roundabout is in front of the Chapel which is at the centre of the original building that previously housed a flax factory.  The two storey building seen to the right is the Maternity ward upstairs and Children's ward below.  Behind the old flax building the blue/green roof is the new hydro-electricity generator house.  In the foreground on the right is the isolation and medical ward block  with the new mothers waiting home to the right and the rehabilitation hostel nearest the camera.

Just to the left of the middle of the foreground is a greenish roof - this building used to be a bank but is now housing the Staff Room and the Records and Data department.

As always we are amazed that, as we have often said, if you flew over Kisiizi and blinked you would miss it as geographically its quite small.  But now with the mothers waiting home taking us up to 284 beds and more activity and training going on, Kisiizi is having an ever growing influence near and far.