First Week in Tanzania!!!!

So here we are at the end of our first week in Africa and what a first week it was!! We have settled in quickly in the Work the World house with the 20 other medics and nurses, we're flying the Physio flag.

We started work to find that there was only one Physio working in the WHOLE hospital which consists of about 10 departments. A bit of a random start to our morning-while waiting to meet the physio we were given the job of cleaning some surgical equipment with soapy water-very sterile!!! The physio we were told had popped out to the bank-a perfect example of the laid back attitude to work here-TIA (This Is Africa) is a phrase we have become very familiar with!

On our initial tour of the hospital, nothing would have prepared us for the conditions of the wards-the overcrowding in the paediatric ward means that there are two families to a bed. A lot of the wards could be compared to a garage at home-cobwebs, mouldy bed clothes and mosquito nets (if available at all), infection control seems to be a foreign notion! Privacy is extremely limited with no curtains between beds, even in the labour ward.

The lack of equipment and funding mean that patients often don't receive adequate assessment or treatment and often go without. The hospital depends largely on donations from "Mzungu's" (white people-as we're often called). The minor theatre clinic which predominantly deals with fractures was without x-ray film before our arrival. Fortunately, from money raised by our housemate this has not been an issue since we have been here.

We have been working with several paediatric burn patients, which has been a serious eye opener and learning experience for us both. Largely due to the close living conditions these injuries are common and devastating-often covering large percentages of their bodies. This is one of the main areas where we would hope donations from our friends and family could make a difference. Lack of finances to buy topical antibiotics means doctors are resorting to using honey to coat these burns, which although has healing properties, is not suitable for these devastating burns. Together with the fact that the babies have been known to eat the honey coating the scald, possibly leading to further infection.

There are currently 2 Zimmer frames in the hospital, probably two of the only pieces of physio equipment we have come across. One of our post-op patients who has lay in bed for over 2 weeks is not progressing with her walking as we have no crutches or walking sticks to give her to enable her to walk without our help. This means she has to stay in hospital for a lot longer than she would in the UK or Ireland where this equipment is readily available.

This only scratches the surface of our experiences and of the areas where we think our donations could hugely impact these patients lives and quality of care.

For those of you who have donated, THANK YOU and we hope you can see where your money will be going and for those who haven't yet got around to it, can we PLEASE make a HUGE APPEAL for whatever you can give.

Thanks again,

Alison and Bla

x x x x