Getting Settled

It’s been an interesting couple of days. I finally managed a room at the Forest Way but now that I’m here I realize that you have to be careful what you wish for. There is a strange attitude at this hotel that I can’t explain. What use to be charming place that felt welcoming has turned cold and perfunctory.  I think I know why and the bottom line is I may move back to the other place which was perfectly adequate. We’ll see.

We initiated the new operating suite yesterday. Not intending to operate until Monday we came across a woman with an acute abdomen that had been neglected for several days and despite it being a weekend I pulled the trigger. The crew was slow getting things together – it took six hours to actually get started but we got it done. Grace proved to be a remarkably good assistant.

The hospital seems to be suffering from the same problems as past years. The personnel situation seems a little better but the lack of simple supplies such as catheters, tubes, urinary drainage bags bandage materials, etc. is worse than ever. This was driven home this morning when we went to see our patient from yesterday and found her lying in a bed soaked with urine. I was told this was because a collection bag was not available. I told them to do the obvious – clamp the catheter off and open it every few hours to drain into a pan until I can buy a bag at the local medical supply store. How frustrating it is that theses supplies are available across the street but are not in the hospital because the supply chain emanates from Dar es Salaam 700 miles and several layers of corruption away. Oh well, it is what it is and my job is to function within the system and do the best I can. I will, however make waves. We went yesterday to pay our respects to the Regional Commissioner (Governor), who is a friend from past trips and sign the book. He invited us for dinner tonight at a new restaurant. Hopefully we can get down to talking about some issues surrounding the health care system. If there are too many people there I will arrange to meet him privately.

Tomorrow (Monday) will be the first full day at the hospital. If you get to read this I have overcome a problem. The local internet café will not allow flash drives and I don’t have time to sit there and write all this during the day. I have a G3 device but it is so slow that uploading is impossible. So the plan is for Grace to create a diversion while I quickly insert the thumb drive and move these files on to the desktop.

Stand by.

PS: I found a computer on which I can use a flash drive. Now I'll be able to include pictures. YES!!!