First Day in the Hospital

Really enjoyed my first day following the physios round, they are both lovely and took time to explain everything to me! We also had great fun as they tried to teach me some Luganda and I answered all their questions - they were very inquisitive about the UK and Scotland and how we do things there! All the people are so lovely here! We’ve just had a couple of the trainee Ugandan doctors pop round this evening to play badminton with us J

You almost just can’t compare what goes on at a hospital here to home. We went round all the different wards to check if we had any new patients that had come over the weekend and wrote down the ones that were still there from Friday, so that we had a list of what to cover through the day.  Apparently I am to expect a lot of patients with burns, trauma and who are weakened by diseases such as Malaria, HIV/Aids etc.

Just a brief outline of the day:

8.15ish – Morning devotions with other staff where we sang a few songs, someone talked through a passage from Genesis and there was time for announcements where anyone can say anything, I had to introduce myself to everyone as it was my first day

9ish – I headed to Rehab department, which is just one room on the end of the Paediatric ward, however the physios weren’t there yet, and I was reminded that we are in Africa!! They did come after a wee while and they inducted me about the place. We then slowly made our way to find patients as the whole place is in a bit of a muddle on a Mon morning as that is when every ward gets a deep clean, so everyone heads outside while that’s done. The wards are pretty hot and cramped with hardly any room between beds and every patient has an attendant (a family member) who washes and feeds them and sleeps on a mat beside there bed.

We started with a patient who had superficial burns on all her limbs as she had been saving her little baby girl from a fire one morning last week. I had never seen burns so bad but they seemed really relaxed about it all and said she would recover well, so I’m guessing I will see worse while I am here. They managed to do Range of Movement ex’s with her and got her standing for a few minutes, but it really took it out of her. Then we saw a lady with two broken elbows before heading back to the Rehab dept for the class for Malnourished kids. They were so cute! But they were just tiny (the three year old barely looked older than one) they were really quite underdeveloped. We played with them, trying to encourage them to sit up/play with toys and one of them was able to walk a little and kick a football and then we sang with/for them before they left!

1pm – Lunchtime (funnily enough lunchtime dosn’t seem to be late, which suits me perfect!!) The ladies at the guesthouse make us lunch during the week and we had a lovely shepherds pie today! They seemed to add a few different vegetables and more flavour which was nice.

2.15ish – back to rehab dept. We had a long conversation where more questions were asked about where I’m from – Do you have monkeys? Gorrillas? How about Crocodiles? No lions?! Then we decided to go see the rest of the patients which ended up being a wee boy who seems pretty unwell with a very swollen belly because of fluid in his abdomen, fluid in his lungs and many other complications, so we were encouraging him to play games with us, go up and down steps and blow bubbles. Then we got a man who had fractured his femur and needed a few pins to fix it, using a walking frame and then crutches. And we were done about 4.30ish.

They seemed to have a reasonable amount of toys for the kids but some of the equipment like walking aids are very old and I noticed the kid size walking frame only had one wheel that turned around, and it was pretty stiff as well.

There was so much I didn’t have time to write about last time! Just the simple things that I’ve actually got fairly used to in the last few days; like the unreliable electricity, the fact you have to boil the water and filter it before you use it even for your teeth and that you shouldn’t really use the inside toilet and if you do, only flush it once a day between everyone in the guesthouse!

I was starting to think there wasn’t even much point in using the shower as only a trickle (and I mean trickle!) of cold water came out of it, but thankfully I discovered tonight that the upstairs shower in the Guesthouse feels like a power shower in comparison, well, that’s maybe an exaggeration... but I do feel clean after it which is a bonus!

Oh, and I am loving the African transport! Muttattu’s with 20 odd people squished in, and Bodas (Motorbikes with a driver that fits two extra people on) to take you to church 5km away!

I feel I have so much to learn here which is very exciting, I’m loving it so far and feel like I’m settling in. We’ve just had another medical student arrive today so there are now 5 of us in the guesthouse which is lovely, we all try and make tea together every night and it’s good to chat over everyone’s day together. I also realise that it’s not going to be easy though. Death is so common at this hospital and it is really difficult to see some patients so ill. I’m certainly learning to trust God but also learning to appreciate more of his creation in this beautiful country and with these people that he made and loves (which I will remind myself of many times I’m sure when there are misunderstandings and culture clashes)!