supplies arrived, cool boxes and syringes (in boxes!) lay everywhere. The
fridge generator grumbled and moaned over the extra work of trying to chill
more than two hundred ice packs.
Three weeks ago if you'd have asked me to organise a vaccination campaign I
would have found it about as easy as doing a newspaper crossword under
water, in Chinese. Now the only people who had ever done one before were the
driver and I. I was very much being looked to for all the answers, anyone
who knows me at all will testify that any answers on any question are often
beyond me at the best of times. The pressure was most defiantly on.
Thankfully the cavalry in the shape of a Dutch nurse arrived to help me out.
Very interestingly she had done my job here for nine months two years ago.
The more we talked the more we realised that we had been doing exactly the
same things during our time here. She had built a fence around one clinic. I
had rebuilt it. She had introduced anti natal care into the outreach sites.
I had reintroduced it. Sustainable development is a long way off I think.
Preparations made we got in the car at six thirty (or 'silly o'clock' as I
preferred to call it) and down the track went the vaccination travelling
circus.
The chief welcomed us and had arranged all the people in a queue!!!!
Obviously, coming from the UK I greeted the sight of people queuing with
utter delight and unconfined rapture, I nearly joined the end of it out of
habit. We rattled through eight hundred vaccines by lunchtime.
The way we set up a vaccination session is the same format wherever we go.
Two 'shooters' jab the people and the injections are prepared by the
imaginatively entitled (if not exactly succinct) 'meningitis vaccine
preparers', finally it's on to the tally sheet, to get a score at the end
and keep my boss happy. It's more like a factory production line than
healthcare. No time for chat and idling around, just keep them moving at all
costs. The vaccination team, when working well together run like they are
manning an artillery gun, not preventing meningitis, in this case our team
were superb.
The main problem here is that following a queue and 'move in one direction'
system (as we would know it) isn't understood by the population. We used
trees and string long lines of tape (almost identical to police cordon)
between them to try and encourage/force people to move in the right
direction, but many seemed happier to dive under the tape rather than
proceed to the tally sheet desk. I guess it's all about conditioning.
In the west since we learn to walk (and possibly before) we are used to
queuing up for things (post office, ticket booth, toilets etc etc) when you'
ve never had to queue up in that way or walk in one direction through a
series of points where you are required to do things it's not second nature.
For a while it was like herding cats! A few strategically place chiefs
helped a little.
We returned the second day for more of the same and pushed the numbers over
one thousand. Pats on the back all round.
It was onto a much bigger village and a bigger challenge the next day. In
order to get the maximum number of people possible we tied our vaccination
in with another NGO's food distribution day. This is (as the name perhaps
suggests) a designated day of the week when malnourished children and their
families get a weeks food ration. It's not exactly top-notch cuisine. In
fact it's dull and basic, but it keeps you alive.just.
People come from far and wide to the distribution, so we operated on the
'well whilst you're here, lets make sure you don't die of meningitis in the
meantime' principle. It worked well, too well. We had more than a thousand
people turn up. Crowd control became a real issue and in the end we had to
use tape on the ground and more chiefs to guide people. It wasn't wholly
successful with some chiefs seemingly unable to get people to move in the
right direction, and one, who was about as much use as an Easter egg in a
blast furnace.
By lunchtime we had vaccinated more than one and half thousand people. I had
had to abandon my job of supervising the vaccine preparers and plough into
vaccinating, opening a third line of people. This eased the pressure
slightly but people seem to be appearing from nowhere. My right arm had
performed the same action so many times repetitive strain injury almost set
in. I dreamt that night about having to throw a million darts in one hour;
otherwise crocodiles would eat me. I'm not sure the dream and the days
events were entirely unrelated, where the crocodile bit came from I'm not
sure, must be the anti-malarials.
