Hospital tours

It is amazing to see how much can occur in such little time…..This entry will focus mainly on our hospital tour. Jessica and I have split the information and will talk about different things.

Where to start. I have to start with the basics. I have been waking up almost every day at 0530!!! It feels really good to be up and get the day started. Actually I have been running or doing some kind of activity; it’s a great way to see the place. Now waking up at 0530 means going to bed at 2030 (8:30 PM!). I don’t know if it is jet lag, or if it is the exhaustion from the day. I can literally sleep through party happening just feet from my room. It is cold at night. So cold. We can’t seem to put our finger on it. It’s not damp cold or temperature cold (only 7 degrees) but we just are having trouble adapting to the temperature…. We have heard that Mongu is warmer though.

Ok, now for the tour. UTH is huge, it took over 2 hours to walk through the hospital and that wasn’t every ward or building either. There is a large focus on pediatric and maternal health, which I found fascinating. There is an entire building focused on pediatric HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately we didn’t visit it, but saw many other amazing things. There is a building specifically for pediatric diarrhea, and another building focused on infectious diseases. This area was split into the different diseases: measles, meningitis, TB, chickenpox, and then an acute area for severe infections. The head nurse was very educated and looked at the larger picture. It was her job to keep statistics of outbreaks and report them to the Ministry of Health. She discussed with us the many different strategies that Zambia had taken to reduce infectious diseases such as multiple immunization campaigns. On this ward I saw my first heart-wrenching patient. A small child with uncontrollable tremors and perfuse sweating. She had contracted TB and was being treated for multiple illnesses such as chickenpox, viral meningitis, and HIV. However, her family refused ARV treatment and she looked as if there was already brain damage from a multitude of illnesses. It was horrible to see, but it is a reality of nursing.

The next ward I was fascinated with was the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It was huge! There must have been close to 30 babies there. Words can not express how shocked I am by Mother Nature. We saw 24-week babies, with no interventions such as IV or feeding tubes, in incubators acting very vigorously. 900 gram babies acting the same way. Now, whether time will tell the fate of these babies, it is amazing to see how they can survive and act with no interventions. In a developed hospital these babies would have a multitude of tubes and wires, where these babies had none. There was a section specifically for twins, as well as an area for term babies with sepsis. There was equipment! Not much, but we did see one baby on a corometrics monitor, and other babies receiving oxygen from tubing taped to their upper lip (pointed at the nare). In comparison to Canada, the lack of equipment was alarming, but in contrast to the hospital in Tamale, Ghana it was amazing.

We also visited the morgue. Getting to the morgue was like walking through a horror film. The hall was dark, long, and had a dank smell to it. As we continued walking we passed doorways to rooms where the roof had collapsed. It set the mood in an eerie way. The morgue was huge. There were two large fridges that held over 100 people (as well as an over flow area holding up to 64 bodies). The mortician said that the morgue was almost always full, as there are high death rates in the area. One of the larger fridges was specifically for community deaths such as police cases, deaths at home, or patients who died on route to the hospital. When asked the major causes of death the mortician replied, “murders for community deaths and congestive heart failure for hospital deaths.” When we dug deeper we found that there is a high rate of shootings that occur in the city. As well, motor vehicle accidents occur almost daily. As far as congestive heart failure, it goes to say that it is almost a normal condition in the elderly, but we were told that a large amount of young people die from CHF due to poisonings.

I am feeling more settled and excited to be here. When we went to the mall I was relieved to see that you can really buy almost anything here. At the same time I was disappointed that there were franchises here. I think when we get to Mongu it won’t be as commercial or urban and will feel like more of a challenge. We haven’t eaten local dishes yet, but have tried the local brew. It was interesting to see what an influence South Africa has on this country. From staff going abroad to receive education, or malls based on South African stores, the presence is all around.

Tomorrow we are going to Livingstone/Victoria falls….I can’t wait. Talk to you soon,

Lianne

ps - I can't tell you how much your beautiful words of encouragement mean!!