Call me a baby catcher!

Had a delightful and much needed weekend of relaxation the last couple of days. Did some odd jobs around town and spent a lot of time basking in the almost 30 degree heat by the hotel pool - its the only hotel in Hoima with a pool! That is until we were driven in by the enormous rain clouds surrounding us from all sides. On Saturday night we went out for dinner with Charlie and heather to have a change from the hotel foo and on Sunday night 6 of us went for dinner at Esau's and 5 of them went back leaving me behind to settle in to my new home.
Esau has a lovely wife, olive, who has been very welcoming and 3 delightful girls - Eileen, 13, Esther, 9, and eve, 4. Eve is definitely the most excited to have me here - every time I look at her she is staring and smiling at me, bless her.
So the weekend was the calm before the storm as I discovered during the whirlwind of today. Had a fairly gentle morning having met the midwives at the clinic and I went round doing heart rate and temp checks on all the little bubbas who are all indescribably cute! Then as we were starting to think about food (although I never stop) a woman came in with extremely raised blood pressure. Spent about the next hour tending to her and trying to get the doctor and eventually had to refer her to Hoima hospital as there is no anaesthetist at azur to give her a c section.
Had my first ever journey in an ambulance down the bumpy Ugandan streets and no sirens (a little disappointing) and arrived at the hospital. The trouble with this lady - as with most of the women out here - was that she had no idea when her last period was so had no idea when her baby was actually due. We worked out she must be about 30 weeks but we also diagnosed her with preeclampsia (like Cybil in downton (which I'm gutted I'm missing)) so the baby needed to be delivered otherwise she would start fitting. Whilst waiting for theatre to be free - there is only one for the whole of Hoima (Basingstoke size) so they have 2 ops going on side by side - I watched another c section and acted as the baby catcher. I was given the baby straight out of the tummy to take and wrap and clean and weigh. It was a pretty amazing feeling holding that brand new life in my hands even if it was covered in disgustingness!
However this extreme high was followed by a low when the other woman in theatre had a still born and again we had to clean it and wrap it up - not so thrilling!
Eventually our preeclamptic (PET) lady got onto the table and I watched Charlie perform her c section which I loved although most people would hate it :P again I acted as baby catcher and was handed the tiny weeny 1.8kg, 30 week baby, who was surprisingly alive and squawking, to sort out and then rushed over to neonatal ward for proper care!
The woman next to our PET lady was also having a c section so I watched the end of that and was handed her baby too. He wasn't in such a good state and needed a fair amount of resuscitation but eventually started screaming at us to stop thumping on his chest! His mother however was bleeding a lot so an emergency hysterectomy (removal of uterus) had to be done which again was really interesting to watch but with copious amounts of blooood!
All 3 of the babies I 'caught' were stable as I left the hospital and here's praying that they continue to improve over the next couple of days.
I'm writing this lying in bed, exhausted, after dinner (predominantly carbs) with the family and a cold shower
Love to all xxx

One week gone!

I cannot believe it is a week since I said a tearful goodbye to my mother at the airport!!
I have done, seen and experienced so much in so little time. The last couple of days have been as busy and exciting as the others. I spent one of the days clearing the store cupboard that belongs to the Basingstoke Hospital charity and Help Hoima which was full of useless or out of date equipment and drugs that people have brought here over the last 7 years. But also held plenty of indispensable items. The amount of orange dust in there was ridiculous and I was covered head to foot when I came out. As a break from the store cupboard I stayed with a woman in labour for a while but didn't actually see her give birth - however the next day she came running to find us to show us her beautiful baby :)
Yesterday was a completely new experience altogether. We went on a trip to a place called Runga which is on the edge of Lake Albert. We set up an antenatal clinic and an HIV screening area. The village was completely secluded from anywhere else and was all mud huts and drop toilets. It was a beautiful place with a spectacular view over the lake - which looked like the sea - and you could just see the Republic of Congo on the other side. The children were all absolutely thrilled to see us and they kept just coming up to us and stroking our skin because they were mesmerized by how white it was. Many of the younger ones wouldn't stop crying because they had never seen a white person before so they were terrified! When we took pictures of them, they loved it and I got swarmed many a time so that they could see themselves on the camera. We set up the clinic in the church which again was made of mud with a corner for observations (temp, BP, heart rate, weight, etc) and then 2 palpitation stations to check the gestation time and approximately when the due date would be (none of them know themselves). And then I was in charge of the log book and 'pharmacy' giving out multivitamins, folic acid, worming tablets and antimalarials. We got through 62 pregnant women in 3 hours and there were some that we didnt have time to check - that's a lotta pregnant people in one village!! I was shocked by how young some of them were - one was only 16, and another was 18 and about to have her second baby - and how many children some of them had had (the most was 8 previous babies). I was also shocked by the number of pregnant women with HIV, some of whom had known already that they were HIV +ve and yet still got pregnant again, but there's not a lot they can do to stop it!
The journey there and back was an experience in itself. It was an orange dirt road the whole way which gradually got thinner and thinner until we were practically driving down a footpath. Just before we got to the village we had to pretty much go down a rock face which had massive ravines in it from water running down and I have never been so bumped around in my life. The journey back was awful too because I hadn't been able to use the cockroach infested, stinking toilets so I hadn't been to the loo for 11 hours so my extremely full bladder felt every single bump ;)
The paediatric team went off on safari in the early hours of this morning so there is just 5 of us left in Hoima. This morning, I went to the local girls secondary school with Heather (Charlie's wife who teaching there) and I had a chat to the head teacher about whether I can help out there at all. We decided that I would do 'computer basics' classes for the equivalent of Year 7, 8 and 11 - however, I later found out that there is just one computer monitor and none of them know anything about computers so that could be interesting. I am also going to join in their PE lessons playing netball and volleyball to burn off some of the large quantity of carbs that I am eating every day.
We took most of the afternoon off having scrubbed down the labour room at Azur clinic (which looked like it had never been cleaned) so I fell asleep by the pool in the sunshine and now we are preparing ourselves for a weekend of relaxation.
Everything will change again on Sunday when I move in with Esau, the director of Azur, and become even more immersed in the African life.
Lots of love to everyone back home xxxxx

What a couple of days!

Wow, so much to say! Yesterday was a crazy first day...started by meeting Esau the director of the azur clinic who I am moving in with next week. Then as a team of midwives we went and did a post/antenatal ward round and I was given the task of checking all the babies temperatures and their heart rate - most of the babies had been born in the early hours of that morning and were absolutely tiny. If they were cold we wrapped them up in woollen jumpers knitted from home and put them skin to skin with mother (how they were cold I don't know, it was boiling). After lunch we went over to meet Charlie (a UK obstetrician here for 6 months) at Hoima hospital and I was thrown in at the deep and watching/assisting in delivering a baby! It was all a successful labour so it was really exhilarating even though most of what I was doing was fanning the mother and holding her hand! It made me so happy when her little baby boy was born a little blue but he quickly started breathing :) watching the birth of the placenta was less appealing and much more gruesome - not for the faint hearted!
Today I wandered around Hoima in the morning visiting the school. This afternoon I managed catch the end of a caesarian section after a ruptured uterus and a still birth with the mother ending up having a stillborn baby :( there was a lot of blood loss and shockingly she had the last thing of blood of her type in the hospital! I helped in her recovery when she came round, keeping check of her obs and making her as comfortable as possible. Rhi and I ended up walking down Hoima high street in our scrubs to buy morphine over the desk from a pharmacy - that would get you struck off back home!
The hardest part for me was that we couldn't communicate with the family so they had no idea what was going on or that there was no baby...it was heartbreaking and eventually when they were told it was very upsetting!
It has been an exhausting couple of days but I am loving it and Charlie says he's going to make me into an obstetrician yet ;)
Lotsa love xxx

Arrived safely

Hello hello! I have arrived in Hoima, where I will be spending the next 9 weeks. The journey down from the airport was a long and bumpy one but watching out the window kept me entertained with massive piles of pineapples filling the pavements and people carrying things like beds on the back of their bikes!
Today was the first full day here and it has been gently busy. At the moment I am here with; 4 midwives, a biomed student, and 5 paediatricians/nurses. We visited the Hoima referral hospital which is the government funded hospital - it was pretty shocking even though I've seen it before and there was a distinct lack of staff (maybe because its Sunday), the amount of people lying on dirty sheets or on the floor was ridiculous! And almost all the sinks were blocked making washing hands to prevent infection pretty difficult!
We then went on to the azur clinic which was set up by the charity 'Help Hoima' which was so much better in contrast to Hoima hospital but still nothing on UK health care! With 2 women per side room in labour - no one in England would put up with that!
After unloading the 15 boxes of medical equipment, knitted clothes and toys we took a visit to the mustard seed orphanage. It was lovely to see all the children that I saw 2 years and 7 years ago, even if they didn't remember me - just another mzungu (white person). I was amazed to see a little boy who arrived critically ill, absolutely tiny and at deaths door last time I was here was so chirpy and happy and healthy :)
Just had a surprisingly warm and powerful shower after a failed attempt at one this morning which was just a cold, dribble - its very hot and sticky here!
So far I am having a great time and I'm excited about what I'm going to do, see and experience over the next 2 months :)
Much love xxxx