Thursday 27 October 2011

27th October 2011

Yesterday, a woman from a village about 3 hours drive away was induced at the nearby health centre (not sure why they did this). She was pushing for 18 hours but getting no-where. Eventually, at around 2am she arrived at the hospital, where an emergency caesarean section of a breech presentation baby was performed by Jeremy (he was on call). This classic situation would have been completely avoided if they were performing ultrasound scans at the health centres to determine the baby’s presentation. I am therefore heartened by the fact that one aspect of my project – to introduce scanning into the health centres – will be of value. Both the mother and baby survived their ordeal, but this was largely because they had access to rapid transportation. For the majority of women, this is not the case and so either mother, baby or both, could easily come to an unpleasant end.
Despite having had quite a disturbed night, I left to visit the village health centres at 07.30 this morning. Again, the views across the country are amazing and you almost forget the level of poverty that saturates this beautiful country. Driving along, you are constantly plagued by goats, donkeys and dogs, all of whom have their place in the road. Kume, the driver told me a classic Ethiopian 'joke'; There was a driver who picked up a goat, a dog and a donkey to take them to the next village. When they got there, the donkey paid his fare and left the car. The odg paid his fare but didn't have the right money and so wanted some change - but the driver didn't have any change and so couldn't give him it. The goat did a runner without paying. So now when you see the donkey in the road, he stays still in the road because he thinks he owns it - he paid his fare. The goat always  runs away from the driver as he is scared he will get caught. And the dog always chases the car as he still wants to get his change form the driver. And this is exactly how it is when driving along. A complete hazard of animals - not to mentio the chickens, cows and humans that simply rin out in fromt of you. You get thrown in prison if you run over a human.
The health centres were very interesting and I made some excellent contacts with health officers and heads of the health centres. They were all interested in working with me on my project and so things are moving ahead really well. I am going to go out with some of the nurses who run the outreach clinics (these are run in the villages - often under a tree). Here I hope to start work on my project to screen women for low, medium or high obstetric risk.
Wjilst at the health centres, word got around that we were there and presumably, they were interested to see a faranji there. So we ended up having 4 women turn up for an ultrasound scan - this was great as I could show the health centre staff how useful the scan was for telling the baby position, how many babies were there and also the position of the placenta. So, all in all, a very successful day.

On the way home, we stopped and bought about 50 bananas for £1.00 from a woman selling them at the side of the road.

Jeremy consulting in the corridors of Ayra Hospital


Two women waiting to give birth at the waiting house near the hospital

1 comment:

  1. Quite the emotional roller-coaster....and that's just me reading the blog!! Looking forward to seeing it all for myself. Lots of love xx

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