Week 2: Some life lessons
Door: Me, definately me
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Elisabeth
20 Januari 2016 | Tanzania, Dar es Salaam
Hello dear friends,
Due to popular request (actually only Claudia), I've decided to start writing my blog in English.
Now back to where I left off: coming back from my trip to Zanzibar I went straight back to the hospital. I spend some more time on the Labour ward (which is where the mothers-to-be come to push their baby out). Me and some other volunteers helped to bring the new mommies to the Natal ward (where they can go and rest for like an hour before they are kicked out) and we washed some beds. I know, it all sounds very exciting. Since it was very quiet on Labour, I decided to go to the Emergency room to see what that was about.
Never in my short life have I seen such a quiet Emergency room. Now I know most of my experience with Emergency Rooms comes from the show ER, but still. You expect a hustle and bustle of nurses and doctors trying to safe badly injured patients. Here there was only one guy lying on a stretcher with a pretty beaten up face. His leg was in a cast (made of freaking cardboard, talk about resourcefulness) and he was crying out for his mother. I asked what had happened to him and a nurse told me very casually that he had been in a motorcycle accident.
Now if you've ever been in Tanzania (chances are you haven't), you will know that the traffic is insane here. There are cars, motorcycles and tuk-tuk's which are called "bajaj". Now they are supposed to drive on the left side of the road. Key word being "supposed". If it's faster, they'll go on the other side of the road and push cars of the road. Giving right of way is not a thing here, you're just supposed to take it.
All in all, it didn't surprise me that he looked the way he did. What did surprise me is the lack of supervision. Nobody was checking his vitals let alone how the poor dude was feeling. I think he was there for about an hour and a half before they decided to put catheter in (a big one might I add) and transfer him to a different hospital.
The hospital structure here in Tanzania is that you have local hospitals (district hospital), which are usually poorly equipped. Then the next step is a referral hospital, which are supposed to be better equipped. Now Mwananyamala Hospital is supposed to be a regional referral hospital. Problem is they do not have the resources for it. They were bumped up from district to regional, before they could even build the facilities they needed.
At the top of the ladder is the National Hospital, which is where they were going to send this man.
He had to be lifted into the ambulance (great idea for somebody who's not even wearing a neck brace) and off he went. I just hope that they did the best they could in the National Hospital.
That night, we went to get dinner in a beautiful restaurant, as a goodbye dinner for some of my housemates. When we were about to take a bajaj home, the drivers started bickering about who was going to take us home. One of them even stole the keys of his rivals bajaj, very mature.
The next day I spend the day in Labour again. A women gave birth to twins and in doing so got a tear in her cervix. Now I was told that in Australia (and I guess most Western parts of the world), women usually get taken tot theatre to get it stitched up properly. Not here, one of the doctors came in and stitched her right up all while sometimes slapping her legs to tell her to be quiet.
As a part of the programme we also do medical outreaches. It's where we go to a school or an orphanage and check the kids. We have to check for little wounds, soars, fungus on their head, etc. Some volunteers brought balloons and it was just so cute to see how happy the kids were with something so simple. The living conditions were poor but seeing those kids happy made me realise that they could be off much worse. At least they have a roof over their head and a little bit of love from the Mammas. It made me realise that sometimes you just have to be happy with what you have. Yes, I might be very sweaty here sometimes, yes the hospital sometimes frustrates me. But I have a loving family and wonderful friends (most of them).
It's something that stuck with me even the next day, when some other volunteers and me went to Bongoyo Island. It's an island just of the coast of Dar es Salaam, which you can reach by taking a questionable ferry. The beaches were beautiful there and the food was wonderful. Toilet was a squatting hole and you had to cross a bush to get there. But as I said, you got to put everything into perspective.
Seeing as I've already typed more than all of my three Munich blogs combined, I thinks it's time to wrap this blog up.
Kwaheri! (It means goodbye in Swahili. Yes, I'm going to be one of those people)
Due to popular request (actually only Claudia), I've decided to start writing my blog in English.
Now back to where I left off: coming back from my trip to Zanzibar I went straight back to the hospital. I spend some more time on the Labour ward (which is where the mothers-to-be come to push their baby out). Me and some other volunteers helped to bring the new mommies to the Natal ward (where they can go and rest for like an hour before they are kicked out) and we washed some beds. I know, it all sounds very exciting. Since it was very quiet on Labour, I decided to go to the Emergency room to see what that was about.
Never in my short life have I seen such a quiet Emergency room. Now I know most of my experience with Emergency Rooms comes from the show ER, but still. You expect a hustle and bustle of nurses and doctors trying to safe badly injured patients. Here there was only one guy lying on a stretcher with a pretty beaten up face. His leg was in a cast (made of freaking cardboard, talk about resourcefulness) and he was crying out for his mother. I asked what had happened to him and a nurse told me very casually that he had been in a motorcycle accident.
Now if you've ever been in Tanzania (chances are you haven't), you will know that the traffic is insane here. There are cars, motorcycles and tuk-tuk's which are called "bajaj". Now they are supposed to drive on the left side of the road. Key word being "supposed". If it's faster, they'll go on the other side of the road and push cars of the road. Giving right of way is not a thing here, you're just supposed to take it.
All in all, it didn't surprise me that he looked the way he did. What did surprise me is the lack of supervision. Nobody was checking his vitals let alone how the poor dude was feeling. I think he was there for about an hour and a half before they decided to put catheter in (a big one might I add) and transfer him to a different hospital.
The hospital structure here in Tanzania is that you have local hospitals (district hospital), which are usually poorly equipped. Then the next step is a referral hospital, which are supposed to be better equipped. Now Mwananyamala Hospital is supposed to be a regional referral hospital. Problem is they do not have the resources for it. They were bumped up from district to regional, before they could even build the facilities they needed.
At the top of the ladder is the National Hospital, which is where they were going to send this man.
He had to be lifted into the ambulance (great idea for somebody who's not even wearing a neck brace) and off he went. I just hope that they did the best they could in the National Hospital.
That night, we went to get dinner in a beautiful restaurant, as a goodbye dinner for some of my housemates. When we were about to take a bajaj home, the drivers started bickering about who was going to take us home. One of them even stole the keys of his rivals bajaj, very mature.
The next day I spend the day in Labour again. A women gave birth to twins and in doing so got a tear in her cervix. Now I was told that in Australia (and I guess most Western parts of the world), women usually get taken tot theatre to get it stitched up properly. Not here, one of the doctors came in and stitched her right up all while sometimes slapping her legs to tell her to be quiet.
As a part of the programme we also do medical outreaches. It's where we go to a school or an orphanage and check the kids. We have to check for little wounds, soars, fungus on their head, etc. Some volunteers brought balloons and it was just so cute to see how happy the kids were with something so simple. The living conditions were poor but seeing those kids happy made me realise that they could be off much worse. At least they have a roof over their head and a little bit of love from the Mammas. It made me realise that sometimes you just have to be happy with what you have. Yes, I might be very sweaty here sometimes, yes the hospital sometimes frustrates me. But I have a loving family and wonderful friends (most of them).
It's something that stuck with me even the next day, when some other volunteers and me went to Bongoyo Island. It's an island just of the coast of Dar es Salaam, which you can reach by taking a questionable ferry. The beaches were beautiful there and the food was wonderful. Toilet was a squatting hole and you had to cross a bush to get there. But as I said, you got to put everything into perspective.
Seeing as I've already typed more than all of my three Munich blogs combined, I thinks it's time to wrap this blog up.
Kwaheri! (It means goodbye in Swahili. Yes, I'm going to be one of those people)
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