Third Day of Clinic

Wednesday

Nancy and Lynda have been spending time with the abandoned girl at the clinic – lets call her Rebecca. They have bought her bed sheets and sandals, and given her some clothes. All this time, there has been not a word out of her. Suddenly this morning she said “thank you”, giving Nancy and Lynda hope that they are reaching her. We met with the Probation Officer who explained the process we need to go through to place her – it includes having her interviewed by a Community Development Officer, so we’ll pursue that next.

Another birth today! The mother, in her 5^th pregnancy, was admitted at 10 a.m. and delivered a beautiful girl at 2 p.m. Nancy did the honours closely observed by the staff (and sundry others – must get dividing curtains for the ward). At one point it suddenly dawned on Nancy that there was no button on the wall to push for help, as there is at home – the responsibility was all hers and there was no fancy equipment available. Everything went well until the mother started to haemorrhage. Fortunately the team had made a special trip that morning to buy some oxytocin for just this eventuality – it worked immediately, stopping the haemorrhage. All over the developing world mothers die for lack of a 25 cent vial of oxytocin – hard to imagine but true. Many prayers of thanksgiving today.

Anna and I spent more time in Fort Portal. First we continued our year-long hunt for results of of a survey which was taken last year to track progress against the Millennium Development Goals (which cover for example, infant mortality, families’ access to water, sanitation practices, access to health services etc). The survey sampled households in the parishes around Rambia so the data would be helpful in developing projects that would improve health. We got some summaries, but were referred elsewhere for the details. Then to the Area Manager of the National Water and Sewerage Corporation who we met last year: she helped us arrange for the water at Rambia to be tested. As a leading member of Rotary in Fort Portal she also encouraged us to submit a proposal to them for a water project or for support of the clinic which we will work on next week. Next on the list was JESE (Joint Effort to Save the Environment), another local NGO who like HEWASA do water and sanitation projects, but also help communities improve agricultural practices. They too are receptive to a request from us to initiate a project.

The days are very full and we are all conscious that there is much left undone. We talk through issues at dinner, follow it up with devotions before catching up with other work, processing the day's Patient Encounter Forms and dealing with emails. All the while, looked after by the kind staff of the Lisieux Centre who try to accommodate our strange requests (could we have toilet seats please?),surprise us with unexpected dishes (pumpkin quiche, bread pudding) and start work extra early to make up lunches for us to take to the clinic (french fries - most of which found their way to hungry patients - chapatti with beef, boiled potatoes, muffins). Now if they would only deal with that pesky insomniac rooster.....