Hello from Zambia!
So my first week is almost done and it’s been a bit mad!
Arrived last Wednesday and was picked up by Mrs. Mtonga’s (my contact from
Florence) sons who brought me to my accommodation where Ann was waiting to plan
the next day with me. Ann used to be an ENT nurse and because of both our
familiarity with this area I joined the ENT team on their major rounds the next
morning. These take place once a week when the consultant and registrar see all
of their patients with a trail of med students and student nurses behind them.
I was soon to learn that, although this sounded like a
mammoth task, there are only 10 ENT beds in the hospital (and therefore all of
Zambia) so it didn’t take as long as I thought! I would love to have taken a
photo of the wards but obviously I couldn’t! The lack of equipment compared to
us is astounding, they basically need new everything!
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| University Teaching Hospital Lusaka |
When I accompanied Dr. Mbao, the consultant, to his
afternoon clinic I was again struck by how little they get by on. Everything is
sterilised and re-used. They have one nasendoscope (a camera to look at the
vocal cords with) for the entire country! It made me feel incredibly wasteful
of all the disposable equipment we use and also guilty for all the moaning we
do about lack of equipment. If only we knew! Don’t get me wrong though, this
lack of equipment and staff (3 ENT surgeons for the whole country, this also covers
head and neck) doesn’t reflect on the care. The patients I saw were getting
exactly the treatment they would have been getting in the UK, it just sometimes
takes a bit longer as they don’t have the resources we do, for example an
urgent biopsy result can take up to 6 weeks to return
a result rather than the 2 week protocol we have in place.
It was fascinating to see how everything works; all scans,
xrays etc. are all ordered on paper forms, tracheostomy tubes must be changed twice
daily which sounds crazy to us but they don’t have the “fancy” ones we do where
you can just change and clean the inner tube and then change the whole tube
once a month.
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| Me, Dr Mbao & Sister Mabel |
I spent the next morning in theatre and met Sister Mabel who
showed me around and seemed to be running the show. I stayed for Dr. Mbao’s
morning list which again seemed to be bogged down with issues regarding
equipment. While there I got chatting to some of the nurses, many of whom are
keen to come and work in the UK. The biggest road block at the moment seems to
be the English language test which many of them have failed more than once,
receiving a level 6 when you require a level 7 to qualify to work as a health
care professional in the UK.
By the way for any non ENT heads, sorry! It was really
useful to observe things in an area I’m so familiar with though as I actually
knew what was going on!
After theatre I popped over the nursing school where I was
shown around some of the clinical skills labs – very like ours in Ireland and
the UK, dummys everywhere! It was odd as all nursing students have to wear
their uniforms for class and placement and still wear the white pinafores with
the little hat, seeing rows and rows of them in a lecture hall felt like going
back in time a bit!
On Saturday, Ann brought me to a traditional Zambian kitchen
party. It’s basically a bridal shower but is traditionally where other women in
the family present the bride to be with everything she will need for her new
kitchen when she is married. A little old fashioned, yes, but man was it a
spectacle! Zambian singers, dancers and drummers entertaining everyone for
hours some of them even dressed in traditional tribal gear. It was amazing! I
also met the nurse I was sat beside on the plane who was back for the kitchen
party as it was for her niece. She works in Manchester and got on my flight in
Dubai – small world!
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| Ann Mtonga (front, right) and her 3 sisters at the Kitchen party |
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| Victoria Falls |
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| Just a little bit soaked! |
I am currently in Livingstone, a stones throw from Victoria
Falls where I spent my morning. Still drying off a bit after walking over the
Knife Edge Bridge under the mist of the Falls (probably not going to help the
cold I’ve had all week…) but was well worth it. One of the most spectacular,
powerful sights I’ve ever seen. It was literally awesome and this isn’t even in
wet season! Although I think I was lucky as the weather here has been quite
temperamental this year so there was plenty of water!
I’m currently back at my accommodation (booked due to the
excellent Wi-Fi. Yeah, that’s not happening, this blog may be in retrospect by
the time I actually get to post it!) and just chilling this evening watching
the World Cup as tomorrow I cross the border into Zimbabwe to meet Father Trust
who is the priest running St. Patrick’s Hospital in Hwange where I will be
spending some time. Father Trust and I were going to support Spain in the WC
(his idea, I went with it…) so I hope he’s not too disappointed when I meet
him!For a part of the trip that was hastily added on at the last minute Zambia has been amazing. I’ve been pretty much wrecked and smothered in cold the whole time – the locals have put it down to me being a Westener who can’t handle life in Africa and who am I to argue!?
Ok, time to go on the Wi-Fi and tea hunt!
Slán go foill.
Kate