Arrival & First Day at the Hospital

Hi All, and apologies for the lack of this blog for last couple of days. Neither myself nor Ros have been very well. Were like the 2 of the 3 wise monkeys. Ros has lost her hearing in one ear and I've lost my voice (hurrah, you all cry!).

Atlantic In The Rain

The flight was pretty non-eventful apart from the fact that we refused permission to land because the fire truck couldn't be started. So we were going to divert to Dakar then at the last minute we were allowed to land. 

Whilst still at the Atlantic Hotel we attended the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital (RVTH) for the first time. Our contact was Ousmann Jemmeh. The Medical Departmental Matron.

Ousmann Jemmeh

What follows below is a series of photos taken of the hospital.

This is the internal courtyard of the hospital. Ousmann's office is in the middle of the picture just beyond the furthest car. The picture below shows a typical waiting room whilst Outpatient clinics are in action. Today its Diabetic clinic where as many as 150 patients can come through from 6:00 am in the morning on. Try doing foot checks on that lot!

The next event we were treated was a tour of the wards to get a flavour of the running of the place. Pictures of this will follow in a later blog! The hospital has sex segregated wards, now there's a current topic!

Health education: as one of the processes that occurs in Diabetic Clinic there is a nurse that demonstrates principles of good diet to the patients, all this is done pictorially to avoid literacy problems.

We intend producing other such info for the hospital as part of our project and my artistic flair will be pushed to the limit during the process!

Other parts of the hospital featured on our first day tour were the CSSD department where there is only one steriliser working for the whole hospital!

We were reliably informed that this situation has been ongoing for some considerable time!

Dressing time: Salt or Vinegar? We observed a dressing being carried in outpatients. This was a chronic foot ulcer that was being soaked with vinegar. This apparently effective against Pseudomonal infections - well worth evaluating for ourselves!

All this frantic outpatient was overseen by this very pleasant - almost a celebrity - receptionist!

This concludes the blog for the day of Wednesday 17th August 2010 and we will endeavour to provide you more updates as soon as possible.

Bye for now!!

Terry & Ros