Wednesday

Last week, when we went on our boda tour of the city, we visited Bududa Hospital. It was built by the Japanese government, which surprised me some, but I’m finding more and more that other countries come into Uganda and build hospitals, roads, etc. and then leave. They don’t send supplies or workers, just the building. So Molly and I were really impressed by this hospital and what they were doing, and they practically begged us to come back and volunteer because they were so short-staffed. We planned to go back to Bududa Hospital on Wednesday and back to Bukigai Health Center this Friday. Now, you can’t just walk in and volunteer, which was what we thought the process was. We had to send an official letter, in letter format with a FIMRC stamp and everything. We asked Rashid and Mike who to address the letter to (In-charge, Bududa Hospital) and then delivered them with Rashid. That was Friday. On Tuesday, we get our letter back from Bududa Hospital, and it needs to be re-written. Why? Instead of the in-charge (who had given us the tour and the invitation to come back) we needed to write it to the Medical Superintendent and send it back that day. But they also said that Wednesday would be a great day to come because many ‘activities’ were going on. TIA.

When we got there, it took us 30 minutes or so to find someone who knew where this nurse we were following was. We found her and she took us to the Pediatric Ward, just a pediatric clinic, where we shadowed two medical students. They were very nice, Peter and Moses, and very knowledgeable. I took lots of notes on what they were diagnosing, the process which brought them to a diagnosis, and many of the similarities and differences between Bududa and FIMRC. They spend more time talking to each patient, and they included us in every step, asking what we thought and why the prescribed certain medicines, etc. They do not, however, take any vitals, except weight when they are prescribing medicine. They don’t have a thermometer so if a parent says their child has a fever, they do. They listen to heart sounds, check their eyes (something FIMRC does not do, and either prescribe them medicine, send them to the lab for tests, or admit them to the Ward for meds and observation. It was a very enlightening morning.

They then had to go scrub in on a C-section and we tagged along. When we got there, apparently they didn’t have permission from high enough authority for us to watch, and they had already started. So we sat in a room, for an hour, ate some crackers, and read/ played Sudoku- we’re always prepared. Finally, we said 5 more minutes and we’re going back to the ward to watch more. We waited, and then Peter came and told us to go change into scrubs, we were going to watch a surgery. The scrubs there were like 20 times to big, no joke, and we have pictures. And you have to wear rain boots, or gum boots as they call them, into the OR. It was a really interesting surgery, a molar pregnancy, but the details are not G-rated, so ask me sometime if you really want to know. There are only two operation rooms in the operation theatre complex, but they were a fairly good size. They had some really nice equipment, overhead lights, anesthesia machines, heart rate monitors. Did they use it? No. One of the medical students held a flashlight for the doctor; an old oxygen tank was used for the anesthesia. It was so weird to have all the equipment but not be able to use it. And on everything there was a sticker that had a Japanese flag and “donated by the people of Japan” written on it. The surgeon seemed to be very capable, she had done the c-section before and then right into this surgery. They do ok with what they have. We didn’t actually volunteer as much as we would have liked but we got to see some really cool stuff and we are going back one day next week, no letter needed.

After work we went and picked up some skirts we had made out of some fabric we bought. Then it was back to the Guest House. Nights at home are fun; we have family dinner, lots of laughter, and usually a game of Cranium or something. Everyone has fun together.

This is probably the last post I will have till the middle of next week, because we don’t have internet on the weekends, and Sun/Mon/Tues we are going to Jinja to go white water rafting on the Nile. Please pray for safety, good decisions for everyone in our group, and for fun. Thanks for your love and prayers!