Hello everyone. I’m finally finding my Zambian feet, and have been quite busy for the last couple of days.
Firstly I met up with the wonderful Doctor Emma Lillie. For those of you who don’t know Emma she is a Consultant Anaesthetist that I work with at the Children’s hospital in Brighton. Emma also happens to be Zambian, and it has been talking to her over the last few months about the work that she also does in Zambia, that made me choose this as my first destination. I met Emma at her home where I was made to feel very welcomed by both her and her mother. After a quick chat, we headed to The University Teaching hospital.
At the UTH we met Dr Naomi Shamambo. Dr Naomi, in her own time, showed me around this very large teaching hospital. It’s not without it’s problems, but so is the NHS, however some amazing work is being done there with limited resources. I guess as a nurse the thing I found the most shocking is the nurse to patient ratio. Next time you nurses out there want to moan about being short of staff, most wards over night have 1 qualified nurse for 80 YES 80 patients!!!! Most of the care/meds etc is given by the family. During the day there is around 6-8 nurses, but I think most of them are student nurses. Patients are transported around by their relatives, as there is not really any porters available.
My favourite visit was to the special care baby unit. I spoke to the lead nurse there and that day they had 6 nurses on for 80 babies. She said sometime they can have up to 100 babies and 8 nurses if they are lucky?? There were rows of little cots with tiny babies all wrapped up waiting to be fed….I could have quite happily stayed there and helped out, but I don’t have hospital clearance, and actually maybe they didn’t need my help ??♀️
Despite being so short of staff the lead nurse tells me that infant mortality is falling, due largely to better hand hygiene and other changes they have been making. What wonderful news for all concerned.
While at UTH I also got to met the Theatre Superintendent, who would be the person to help sort out my clearance to do some teaching etc. I’m got going to lie….she scared the bejeebers out of me. I may be imagining it, but she looked less than impressed by me being there. I guess she’s seen it all before, and what help can I be in only 4 weeks?? Probably lots of paperwork and agro for her, for very little return. However, I am here and willing to do anything I can if they want me. I also really appreciate the effort Emma and Naomi have gone too in trying to get me some work. Maybe I’ll just sneak back to the baby unit and help with the feeding ?
After leaving the hospital we went and met up with some Junior doctors from the UK and Australia who are part of the Zambia Anaesthesia Development Program (ZADP) zadp.org I think they are here for 6 months and then they rotate with a new bunch. They were very interesting and listening to the work they do at the UTH was fascinating. They don’t have ODP’s/Anaesthetic nurses here, so they looked lovingly at me ? (I may have made that bit up). They are trying to set up some simulation training and of course I have offered my services. Once again this may or may not be something that works out.
My final connection was via Skype with Emma and Dr Hope. Hope works at Maina Soko military hospital in Lusaka. She is currently setting up Simulation and was very interested in my previous experience. Hope is particularly interesting in Human Factors training. We had such a positive meeting and I think I can really help Hope. However as with everything, I need now Military clearance as well, which Hope is arranging. So, that’s where I’m at….hoping that I can help out in some way, but waiting for all the pieces to fit together.
So while I’m waiting, I’ve been trying to get out and about. I had thought about hiring a car, but the roads/traffic and general driving isn’t great. I’m usually a very confident driver, but with what seems no rules, I’ll leave it to John my taxi driver.
I been to the National Museum, and read about the history of Zambia, slavery and about it’s independence. Also the impact on Zambia when other countries like Zimbabwe were fighting for their independence. Outside the museum was a fantastic statue called ‘breaker of chains’ to celebrate Zambia independence.
Below are some other pictures that I took from inside the museum. My favourite is a letter a child has written about who her heroes are (there were lots of letters, it must have been a class project)
Brilliant!!!
Well that’s about it from me, for now, and if you’ve got this far….well done. Just off for a swim because its 28 degrees here ??☀️☀️
Again a very interesting blog, love the photos of brilliant statues.
Very frustrating waiting to get clearance to help.
I found it was not what you know it’s who you know a lot of the time.
Anyway you are having a rest which you deserve!
Wow for someone who said she hadn’t done much, that’s an impressive list. Sounds absolutely wonderful. I will keep stalking your blog. Any chance of a video blog for youtube?