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| The murram road throught the Kisiizi compound area |
Some of the challenges...
On the staffing side we are sad that Dr Dwight and Sandy McLeod had to unexpectedly and suddenly return to UK to care for elderly parents with health problems. We do hope they will be back with us before too long. Dwight is a specialist Physician and Sandy has valuable nursing experience and has been helping run the Guest House.
Sister Esther, previous Principal Nursing Officer and a very good friend, lost her mum after a long illness so Hanna went to be with the family and to attend the funeral. Hanna also had to go up to Kampala for dental treatment so has become very familiar with the coach / minibus journey (its about 7 hours to drive in a private car travelling from Kisiizi to Kampala and of course with public transport there can be significant extra delays).
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| The scandal of a terribly wasted child's ribcage |
We still have great sorrow when we see patients arriving too late for us to help. A mother came recently having had a Caesarian section at a government clinic two days earlier. She arrived in Kisiizi with gross anaemia, her haemoglobin test being only 2.7 (should be above 10) and in spite of full supportive treatment and transfusion she died the following day. We still see children coming in grossly wasted and malnourished and can only press on with our Nutrition, Family Planning and Community programmes to try and prevent these tragedies.
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| Another child with a swollen body for 2 weeks... |
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| Getting better! |
Financially we are aware of a fall-off in the regular support from Kisiizi Partners but we are very grateful that some of the shortfall has now been made up and we thank those who have made donations, especially the regular standing orders, to help us continue the work here. We greatly appreciate all the efforts made by the trustees of Kisiizi Partners and for all those who pray for Kisiizi and give in different ways - thank you.
... and some of the encouragements!
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| The old floor... |
We were very grateful to hear from All Souls church in London that they are giving a further gift towards the cost of the renovation of the (embarassingly bad!) old out-patient clinic area to make a fit-for-purpose Maternal & Child Health Clinic. People are now getting excited as the work proceeds and the new unit takes shape. It is a busy department with ante-natal and post-natal mothers plus immunisation, child welfare and family planning plus the HIV mother-baby point work.
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| Transformation underway with skylights and terrazo floors... |
We are also excited that after a long period of planning we are due to commence the foundations for our new Mental Health Unit supported by Jamie's Fund. We recently enjoyed a visit from Linda Shuttleworth and colleagues from the Cheshire & Wirral Mental Health Trust in Chester to support Sister Nancy and our mental health team. We are due to have a meeting in a few days time with Basic Needs charity representatives and colleagues from Bwindi Hospital, Nyakibale and Kabale as
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| The meadow on the way to Kisiizi Falls. Note the trees felled as we harvest timber. |
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| Proposed developments |
Another completely different but strategic development is the Stre@mline IT programme we are developing. Encouragingly we have been approved for a grant by the Uganda National Council for Science & Technology. This was a bid against a range of other projects so we are delighted to be awarded the grant which will help us to develop the system. Increasingly we realise how much impact it may have as we improve our data collection, finances and stock control as well as all the patient safety benefits.
