So, it's been a while since I've blogged. I've been crazy busy here, I'm not even sure where to start!
Prior to the arrival of our colleagues from Liverpool I had a hectic few days on labour ward, spending a fair bit of time in theatre, delivering arm prolapses by the breech and other such exciting things. It has been a testing time for me recently with lots of difficult cases and difficult deliveries, not all ending in good outcomes. A lot of the time I feel very surreal and detached when they happen. I think this is a coping mechanism of sorts, but it's not something I'm comfortable with if I think about it too much. Many of the difficulties we experience here are due to resource constraints, meaning that it can sometimes be impossible to manage patients in a timely fashion, for example a woman waited for 24 hours to get to theatre for a third degree tear repair. We are extremely lucky in the UK to have the capacity to get women to theatre within 30 minutes of a decision to deliver.
The team who had recently been to Liverpool presented their work, including a slide show of their touristic activities. A picture of Joy Acen freezing to death, wearing all of her clothes, standing on Crosby beach tipped me over the edge and I sat in the meeting blubbing away, feeling suddenly very homesick! Adam and I had a really nice Thanksgiving meal at a swanky restaurant, as Elizabeth abandoned us and went to Rwanda to celebrate. It was sedate but I was shattered so it was nice to chill out.
On the Saturday I did 6 sections, battling through 5 power cuts. I will never complain about the theatre lights at home again! Thank goodness for Ketamine! I met Adam afterwards to watch the rugby and walking towards a restaurant, I fell down a storm drain. One minute we were bounding down the street and the next I was flat on my face, one leg down a massive hole and the other flat on the pavement, with no idea what had just happened to me! A few cuts and bruises but nothing too exciting.
The team from Liverpool; Andrew Weeks, Carol Porter, Louise Ackers, Sarah Jarvis, Clare Fitzpatrick and Sarah Ryder arrived on 28th November. On the Sunday I excused myself from Labour ward to go to Mabira Forest with them for lunch. By the time we got there and ate, it was time to head back to Kampala, so we didn't get to appreciate the rainforest and wildlife. While there I got a phone call to say that someone had broken into my Mum's house and taken my car - he's currently missing in action. I'm gutted, but at the same time, it made me realise how much I have changed while I've been here. I think when you see as much severe disease and loss of life in difficult circumstances, material things become just things. More importantly, no-one was hurt.
We headed back to Kampala, and had a barbecue at my house. I asked our Ugandan colleagues to contribute typical Ugandan dishes to the otherwise Muzungu style barbecue. I was not expecting someone to bring a box of fried grasshoppers - and neither were the Liverpool lot! Still, they were certainly 'interesting' to eat, although I don't think they'll be stocking them in the international food aisle in Tesco any time soon. We had a great night and a beer or seven. Sarah had carried an SOS parcel for me containing new clothes, M and S goodies, wellies for theatre, Turkish Delights, more Marmite than you can shake a stick at and amongst other wicked things, a Rubik's cube! Louise brought me some face and foot goodies so I will pamper myself when I get a chance.
On Monday we hit the hospital, attending the morning meeting and the report from the Sunday which had been a bad day - including a woman jumping from the fifth floor window - and a shocking introduction to Mulago for our visitors. We then went on a tour of the hospital, starting with the main delivery suite. It's an overwhelming experience even just to be present there, and Clare and Sarah were no exceptions to the rule. They got a good overview of the hospital and by the time we finished the tour it was mid afternoon. We left for the evening and went out for dinner, while Andrew travelled off to Mbale on a bus.
On Tuesday, the two Sarahs went up to Ward 14 and Clare went off to theatre. I was covering labour ward off and on, and went up to check that all was well on 14. A patient was being transferred down to the main labour suite and the girls were following her down as the baby was undiagnosed breech. We got down to labour ward and were there for around 30 minutes before a woman on the floor began pushing.
On Thursday morning we did emergency skills training for 19 midwives from labour ward, covering cord prolapse, PPH and neonatal resuscitation. The session was a bit disrupted by the lack of space but it was enjoyable and I think they learned some stuff. In the afternoon, we visited an orphanage for children whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS. It was a really humbling and emotional experience. The orphanage houses around 30 children, and also pays the school fees for a further 90 from surrounding villages. We had a great afternoon, Clare and Sarah brought bubbles, sticke
rs, cray
ons, colouring books, felt tips and sweets. My SLR 
camera was kidnapped by one of the boys who had a great couple of hours wandering round taking pictures, with me following closely behind, petrified he was going to drop it, but he was so content I didn't have the heart to take it off him. By the end of the afternoon the kids all looked like they had some sort of pox, having put the stickers on their faces, the bubbles had been used up, with a few kids getting soap in their eyes, many having learned to say 'That's lush Clare' in a scouse accent and there was not a flat surface that hadn't been covered in crayon and felt tip! We decided to walk to the village to buy sodas for everyone, and Enid the orphanage manager said she was sending two strong kids with us to help carry the crates back with us. We ended up feeling like the Pied Piper, with about 15 kids in tow, and carried two of the babies who had fallen asleep on the journey! I did a couple of medical assessments, one on a child with asthma and another child with a possible appendicitis. All in all it was a really rewarding day. We had a big meal in the evening at Khana Khazana, where the curry was so hot that Clare said she was 'sweating like a glassblower's arse', which she then had to explain to Joy, the Ugandan midwife, eliciting loud cackles from their side of the table. Avner, who has recently moved into the house, and is a lawyer from New York came down and joined us with Elizabeth. A thoroughly good night all round, and the Ugandan midwives got a doggy bag - also an unfamiliar expression - to take home with them.
Myself, Clare and Sarah then went off to the Red Chilli Hideaway ready for our safari trip to Murchison Falls. We had a noisy night in the dorm there - with me apologising profusely for the budget accommodation - and an early start the next morning. Naturally we ended up on a truck with two Finnish women who talked literally non-stop for 7 hours all the way there, and one angry scouser with a migraine. After a long journey up there, we got to the top of the falls as the heavens opened, Claire having been eaten alive by mosquitoes. Walking up to the top of the falls was an awesome experience, the power of the water was immense. After taking some photos, and helping two stuck trucks out of the mud, we made it to the camp, where we stayed in semipermanent tents, falling asleep to the sound of scavenging warthogs.
We started the next morning with a game drive, crossing the river as the sun rose. We were greeted on the other side by a breakfast robbing baboon, before driving off through the bush in search of the big five. We found giraffes very quickly, then elephants. I will never forget the abundance of wildlife that live alongside each other in that space. We then happened upon a lioness who was sitting in a tree which seemed a bit bizarre, until we realised she was watching an Oribi - a small antelope. She climbed down from the tree, stalked across the grass, and in one swift stealth move, grabbed it by its throat and killed it. An incredible and rare thing to see, we felt blessed. After finding some more elephants, buffaloes, giraffes and crested cranes, we headed back to the lodge for lunch. In the afternoon we took a boat launch to the base of the falls, spotting hippos, crocodiles and kingfshers, drinking Nile on the Nile, catching some rays and chilling out. For three hours, Sarah didn't even have to evacuate her bowels! In the evening we sat in the bar, in a roaring thunderstorm, when in walked a hippo. Well, into the beer garden at least... incredible. It shuffled round a bit, sniffed the ground and then buggered off back to the river!
On Sunday, we went to Ziwa Rhino sanctuary, tracking the rhinos on foot and getting within 5 metres of a male and female. It was a gobsmacking, and slightly pant browning experience, but a real experience. We got back to Kampala, exhausted but really happy.
On Monday we threw our noses back onto the grindstone, working on adapting the Maternity Early Warning Score for Mulago. Amusingly, we're going to call it AMEWS. Using the magic whiteboard that Clare brought with her, we constructed charts using colour coded pens to stick on the wall in the recovery area. On Tuesday we bumbled round on labour ward, putting the AMEWS stuff up on the walls, creating a flurry of excitement. We then arranged to have two blood pressure machines which had been bought for the hospital by two friend mounted on the wall. I took a trip to the workshop, bracing myself for the long paper trail that's usually involved in these things, found a guy called Robert who came back up to labour ward with me. He drilled holes in the back of the machines that afternoon and mounted them onto the wall the next day. I was amazed! We put one up in the post-op recovery room and one in the admissions room.
Within around 30 minutes of Robert finishing the work, a woman came in with a massive antepartum haemorrhage and a stillbirth, bleeding profusely. We couldn't get her into theatre immediately and there was no blood available, so Sarah and Clare monitored and resuscitated her with fluids in our newly created room, using the AMEWS chart on the wall to keep track of her condition. We managed to get her into theatre and delivered the baby by caesarean, but unfortunately had to do a subtotal hysterectomy. She eventually got blood, and thanks to a good team effort is doing fine.
On Thursday morning we ran our second training session, this time on the midwifery led unit, Ward 14. 15 midwives attended, many coming in on their day off, and we trained them on cord prolapse, shoulder dystocia using a Pringles tube, neonatal resuscitation and postpartum haemorrhage. We had a great morning, the staff were really enthusiastic and asked lots of questions. It was good to try it out, with the midwives rotating around each skill and everyone having a go at hands-on. In the afternoon we went to the pub to work on some guidelines and stayed for the quiz, which we were dreadful at, but it was great to have an injection of scouse fun and humour into the evening, Clare at one point taking the mike from the MC and singing at the top of her lungs.
Yesterday morning I was in theatre, and in the afternoon after running a flat baby across to special care attended the Hospital Christmas party, a terribly formal affair to begin with. I was shattered and left early but I believe it turned into the usual drunken debauched evening that you would expect from a hospital bash. I left with a bag of goodies, including the stock of Peperami that Sarah had brought with her in case of famine... I think the dog will end up eating them. Gutted that the girls have left, it was great having them here to help keep me sane at the point where I was becoming more exasperated than I have ever been. Still, it's only a week until I head home for Christmas. I'm ready for a break.
Prior to the arrival of our colleagues from Liverpool I had a hectic few days on labour ward, spending a fair bit of time in theatre, delivering arm prolapses by the breech and other such exciting things. It has been a testing time for me recently with lots of difficult cases and difficult deliveries, not all ending in good outcomes. A lot of the time I feel very surreal and detached when they happen. I think this is a coping mechanism of sorts, but it's not something I'm comfortable with if I think about it too much. Many of the difficulties we experience here are due to resource constraints, meaning that it can sometimes be impossible to manage patients in a timely fashion, for example a woman waited for 24 hours to get to theatre for a third degree tear repair. We are extremely lucky in the UK to have the capacity to get women to theatre within 30 minutes of a decision to deliver.
The team who had recently been to Liverpool presented their work, including a slide show of their touristic activities. A picture of Joy Acen freezing to death, wearing all of her clothes, standing on Crosby beach tipped me over the edge and I sat in the meeting blubbing away, feeling suddenly very homesick! Adam and I had a really nice Thanksgiving meal at a swanky restaurant, as Elizabeth abandoned us and went to Rwanda to celebrate. It was sedate but I was shattered so it was nice to chill out.
On the Saturday I did 6 sections, battling through 5 power cuts. I will never complain about the theatre lights at home again! Thank goodness for Ketamine! I met Adam afterwards to watch the rugby and walking towards a restaurant, I fell down a storm drain. One minute we were bounding down the street and the next I was flat on my face, one leg down a massive hole and the other flat on the pavement, with no idea what had just happened to me! A few cuts and bruises but nothing too exciting.
The team from Liverpool; Andrew Weeks, Carol Porter, Louise Ackers, Sarah Jarvis, Clare Fitzpatrick and Sarah Ryder arrived on 28th November. On the Sunday I excused myself from Labour ward to go to Mabira Forest with them for lunch. By the time we got there and ate, it was time to head back to Kampala, so we didn't get to appreciate the rainforest and wildlife. While there I got a phone call to say that someone had broken into my Mum's house and taken my car - he's currently missing in action. I'm gutted, but at the same time, it made me realise how much I have changed while I've been here. I think when you see as much severe disease and loss of life in difficult circumstances, material things become just things. More importantly, no-one was hurt.
We headed back to Kampala, and had a barbecue at my house. I asked our Ugandan colleagues to contribute typical Ugandan dishes to the otherwise Muzungu style barbecue. I was not expecting someone to bring a box of fried grasshoppers - and neither were the Liverpool lot! Still, they were certainly 'interesting' to eat, although I don't think they'll be stocking them in the international food aisle in Tesco any time soon. We had a great night and a beer or seven. Sarah had carried an SOS parcel for me containing new clothes, M and S goodies, wellies for theatre, Turkish Delights, more Marmite than you can shake a stick at and amongst other wicked things, a Rubik's cube! Louise brought me some face and foot goodies so I will pamper myself when I get a chance.
On Monday we hit the hospital, attending the morning meeting and the report from the Sunday which had been a bad day - including a woman jumping from the fifth floor window - and a shocking introduction to Mulago for our visitors. We then went on a tour of the hospital, starting with the main delivery suite. It's an overwhelming experience even just to be present there, and Clare and Sarah were no exceptions to the rule. They got a good overview of the hospital and by the time we finished the tour it was mid afternoon. We left for the evening and went out for dinner, while Andrew travelled off to Mbale on a bus.
On Tuesday, the two Sarahs went up to Ward 14 and Clare went off to theatre. I was covering labour ward off and on, and went up to check that all was well on 14. A patient was being transferred down to the main labour suite and the girls were following her down as the baby was undiagnosed breech. We got down to labour ward and were there for around 30 minutes before a woman on the floor began pushing.
How many Muzungus does it take to deliver a baby?Anyway, the baby was delivered, followed by a swift flurry of three more deliveries on the floor in the corridor, and a quick round of neonatal resuscitation. On Tuesday evening we continued our culinary tour of Kampala, heading for Turkish washed down with a few more beers and a debrief. Wednesday morning was spent on labour ward again, and in theatre. In the afternoon we had a meeting to talk about the Liverpool Mulago Partnership and the way forward. I think it's a really worthwhile exchange and essential to drive initiatives and keep momentum, and change attitudes.
One to deliver (Sarah, medical student), one to direct the medical student (Sarah, Midwife), one to shout in broad scouse 'Go on sweetheart push down, right down in your bum, that's it, go on, go on' (Clare, Midwife) and one to translate the scouse into Luganda 'Sendike Nyabo, sendike!' (Me).
On Thursday morning we did emergency skills training for 19 midwives from labour ward, covering cord prolapse, PPH and neonatal resuscitation. The session was a bit disrupted by the lack of space but it was enjoyable and I think they learned some stuff. In the afternoon, we visited an orphanage for children whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS. It was a really humbling and emotional experience. The orphanage houses around 30 children, and also pays the school fees for a further 90 from surrounding villages. We had a great afternoon, Clare and Sarah brought bubbles, sticke
rs, cray
ons, colouring books, felt tips and sweets. My SLR 
camera was kidnapped by one of the boys who had a great couple of hours wandering round taking pictures, with me following closely behind, petrified he was going to drop it, but he was so content I didn't have the heart to take it off him. By the end of the afternoon the kids all looked like they had some sort of pox, having put the stickers on their faces, the bubbles had been used up, with a few kids getting soap in their eyes, many having learned to say 'That's lush Clare' in a scouse accent and there was not a flat surface that hadn't been covered in crayon and felt tip! We decided to walk to the village to buy sodas for everyone, and Enid the orphanage manager said she was sending two strong kids with us to help carry the crates back with us. We ended up feeling like the Pied Piper, with about 15 kids in tow, and carried two of the babies who had fallen asleep on the journey! I did a couple of medical assessments, one on a child with asthma and another child with a possible appendicitis. All in all it was a really rewarding day. We had a big meal in the evening at Khana Khazana, where the curry was so hot that Clare said she was 'sweating like a glassblower's arse', which she then had to explain to Joy, the Ugandan midwife, eliciting loud cackles from their side of the table. Avner, who has recently moved into the house, and is a lawyer from New York came down and joined us with Elizabeth. A thoroughly good night all round, and the Ugandan midwives got a doggy bag - also an unfamiliar expression - to take home with them.Myself, Clare and Sarah then went off to the Red Chilli Hideaway ready for our safari trip to Murchison Falls. We had a noisy night in the dorm there - with me apologising profusely for the budget accommodation - and an early start the next morning. Naturally we ended up on a truck with two Finnish women who talked literally non-stop for 7 hours all the way there, and one angry scouser with a migraine. After a long journey up there, we got to the top of the falls as the heavens opened, Claire having been eaten alive by mosquitoes. Walking up to the top of the falls was an awesome experience, the power of the water was immense. After taking some photos, and helping two stuck trucks out of the mud, we made it to the camp, where we stayed in semipermanent tents, falling asleep to the sound of scavenging warthogs.
We started the next morning with a game drive, crossing the river as the sun rose. We were greeted on the other side by a breakfast robbing baboon, before driving off through the bush in search of the big five. We found giraffes very quickly, then elephants. I will never forget the abundance of wildlife that live alongside each other in that space. We then happened upon a lioness who was sitting in a tree which seemed a bit bizarre, until we realised she was watching an Oribi - a small antelope. She climbed down from the tree, stalked across the grass, and in one swift stealth move, grabbed it by its throat and killed it. An incredible and rare thing to see, we felt blessed. After finding some more elephants, buffaloes, giraffes and crested cranes, we headed back to the lodge for lunch. In the afternoon we took a boat launch to the base of the falls, spotting hippos, crocodiles and kingfshers, drinking Nile on the Nile, catching some rays and chilling out. For three hours, Sarah didn't even have to evacuate her bowels! In the evening we sat in the bar, in a roaring thunderstorm, when in walked a hippo. Well, into the beer garden at least... incredible. It shuffled round a bit, sniffed the ground and then buggered off back to the river!
On Sunday, we went to Ziwa Rhino sanctuary, tracking the rhinos on foot and getting within 5 metres of a male and female. It was a gobsmacking, and slightly pant browning experience, but a real experience. We got back to Kampala, exhausted but really happy.
On Monday we threw our noses back onto the grindstone, working on adapting the Maternity Early Warning Score for Mulago. Amusingly, we're going to call it AMEWS. Using the magic whiteboard that Clare brought with her, we constructed charts using colour coded pens to stick on the wall in the recovery area. On Tuesday we bumbled round on labour ward, putting the AMEWS stuff up on the walls, creating a flurry of excitement. We then arranged to have two blood pressure machines which had been bought for the hospital by two friend mounted on the wall. I took a trip to the workshop, bracing myself for the long paper trail that's usually involved in these things, found a guy called Robert who came back up to labour ward with me. He drilled holes in the back of the machines that afternoon and mounted them onto the wall the next day. I was amazed! We put one up in the post-op recovery room and one in the admissions room.
Within around 30 minutes of Robert finishing the work, a woman came in with a massive antepartum haemorrhage and a stillbirth, bleeding profusely. We couldn't get her into theatre immediately and there was no blood available, so Sarah and Clare monitored and resuscitated her with fluids in our newly created room, using the AMEWS chart on the wall to keep track of her condition. We managed to get her into theatre and delivered the baby by caesarean, but unfortunately had to do a subtotal hysterectomy. She eventually got blood, and thanks to a good team effort is doing fine.
On Thursday morning we ran our second training session, this time on the midwifery led unit, Ward 14. 15 midwives attended, many coming in on their day off, and we trained them on cord prolapse, shoulder dystocia using a Pringles tube, neonatal resuscitation and postpartum haemorrhage. We had a great morning, the staff were really enthusiastic and asked lots of questions. It was good to try it out, with the midwives rotating around each skill and everyone having a go at hands-on. In the afternoon we went to the pub to work on some guidelines and stayed for the quiz, which we were dreadful at, but it was great to have an injection of scouse fun and humour into the evening, Clare at one point taking the mike from the MC and singing at the top of her lungs.
Yesterday morning I was in theatre, and in the afternoon after running a flat baby across to special care attended the Hospital Christmas party, a terribly formal affair to begin with. I was shattered and left early but I believe it turned into the usual drunken debauched evening that you would expect from a hospital bash. I left with a bag of goodies, including the stock of Peperami that Sarah had brought with her in case of famine... I think the dog will end up eating them. Gutted that the girls have left, it was great having them here to help keep me sane at the point where I was becoming more exasperated than I have ever been. Still, it's only a week until I head home for Christmas. I'm ready for a break.
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