Bovril. Not much of a winter season by all accounts, it is still hitting the
mid thirties every lunchtime, but the early mornings and evenings are more
chilly, I'm sitting here in a long-sleeved top!! And it hasn't rained at all
since I arrived back. I know that's nothing to those of you looking out on a
snowy blizzard, but it's a big deal here in the desert.
No outreach this week, I've tried to operate them by remote control and
failed miserably. I've dispatched various letters with various questions and
received letters with various answers, which would be fine, except they aren
't answers to the questions to the ones I've asked!!!
First task of the week - brief my new outreach buddy, another UK nurse who
is as new to this game as I was not so long ago. She bounced in from the
other base, with a whole load of other new people. The number of expats has,
instantly, swelled hugely. The majority of them are from the UK. This has
had the unexpected bonus of meaning the office computer's spell check has
now been permanently switched to English (U.K.). Proof of a change in the
balance of power if ever there was one.
The reason for the coming of the proverbial cavalry has been the massive
increase in workload and having them here has (rather typically) coincided
with a significant downturn in the number of patients, leading to our new
arrivals all wondering what all the fuss was about. I was trying to explain
that before Christmas, vast areas of the clinic grounds were covered by
people sleeping on the floor, now they are as God intended. Empty. I think
they tried really hard to believe me. They will see when it all picks up
again!!! I'm staring to sound like one of those awful people who rattle on
about how it wasn't like this in their day!!!! Must make efforts to
stop......quickly!
Anyway my new outreach colleague seems very keen and eager so that is a big
improvement on the last two. We hope to head to our first clinic as early as
next week.
I've found myself doing briefings rather than listening to them, which is
VERY peculiar. It seems only yesterday I was asking the sort of questions I'
m now answering. I'm fielding enquiries about everything from security to
the rates of malaria in expectant mothers without batting an eyelid!
Every day here provides me with a new challenge, and I can't say that about
any job I've had before. This week included the usual mix of triumph and
tragedy. The child with convulsions (mentioned in the last entry) recovered,
against all the odds, and is now running around with his siblings. I'm still
none the wiser as to what it was, but something we did, clearly, worked.
The usual collision between the traditional and the western method of
healing has continued unabated. We lost a month old baby who, inexplicably,
had been fed cows milk since birth and had a very serious infection of the
gut. As things became terminal I gave some morphine and encouraged the
mother to breast-feed for the first time. The child fed beautifully. I left
the hut, wishing the mother had just done that in the first place and not
listened to the ramblings of some village wise woman, all very frustrating.
On an up (because I don't like to end on a down note) I did a refresher
lesson with the staff on pneumonia and not only had they remembered what I
taught them but they had also gone away and read MORE. Some of the detailed
questions at the end rather threw me!!!! Off now to brush up on a few things
about digestion before I get caught out again tomorrow.
