Time travel!

There MUST be a time warp somewhere on the way back from Kisiizi to Europe as time seems to have rushed by in a whirlwind... and so much has happened so apologies to those regular readers of this blog who thought we had hibernated!  Fortunately we didn't forget to remember our 30th Wedding Anniversary!

As soon as we arrived back in UK Ian was off to London to the Royal Society of Medicine / Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health conference on international child health.  Ian had in the past shared an office with the professor who introduced the conference so it was good to catch up and also to chat with Peter Nash who has co-ordinated the RCPCH Global Links programme that has sent Kisiizi a number of excellent registrars in the past couple of years.  Unfortunately the DfiD grant via THET (Tropical Health & Education Trust) which has allowed RCPCH to run the scheme is being discontinued which is a great shame as the programme has proved very successful with both registrars and Kisiizi.  Peter Nash had visited Kisiizi only a few months ago and remains very positive about our work so will endorse future paediatric trainees who come to Kisiizi even if there is no college funding.
At the end of the conference Ian met with a colleague from the London School of Hygiene &Tropical Medicine as they are proposing to send a group of doctors participating in the Diploma of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene to Kisiizi for a week of practical work.

A couple of days later we were back down to London to attend the Friends of Kagando day as we would like to strengthen Kisiizi's links with other church hospitals, something we had done 25 years or so ago when first in Kisiizi and which proved mutually beneficial.

Then on to the annual Christian Medical Fellowship Developing Health course which runs for two weeks and is a brilliant mix covering all the medical specialties for those wishing to work in resource-poor countries.  We are "hosts" so try to look after the participants (we had about 79 in total of whom 39 were there for the full two weeks).  Ian co-ordinates the Paediatrics Day and is one of the course directors.  As always we met inspiring people both participants and lecturers.  The course included much practical work varying from plaster of paris applications to breech deliveries to spinal anaesthesia to dental extractions from pigs' heads!
(see http://www.cmf.org.uk/international/developinghealth/developing-health/)

During the course Ian went into London to meet Anna Bishop of All Souls Church, Langham Place, who have kindly helped Kisiizi with support towards renovating an old clinic building to be a Maternal & Child Health clinic.  Kisiizi's links with All Souls actually go back to the founding of the hospital as the first doctor, John Sharp, and his wife Doreen had lived in the flat in the All Souls Rectory above John Stott who later visited them in Kisiizi!

Just for added interest this year we also had the spectacle of Venus and Jupiter being close together in the evening sky and could see their relative positions move daily.

Following the Developing Health course we went down to Battle to see the Carers & Sharers group who have faithfully supported Kisiizi for decades.  We enjoyed tea at the garden party and gave a talk about the work in Kisiizi which generated quite a few questions and a good discussion.

One unexpected result was that for the first time we came across a PORTABLE oxygen concentrator.  We do, of course, have quite a few standard concentrators in Kisiizi as our main oxygen sources but didn't realise that they are now available in a portable format which is very attractive for us as it offers the chance to move oxygen-dependent patients to x-ray or to the wards after surgery etc as the devices work on batteries.  They also have a connector to a vehicle socket so offer the potential to transport patients to other units which we rarely have to do but when it does occur it is usually with very sick cases who need oxygen and until now we had to rely on cylinders which all too quickly run out.

Subsequently we visited medical equipment charities in Holland and UK and have been able to access with the help of the Battle group a compact device that will help us achieve the above goals.