October 29th.
My nights quickly already acquired a pattern. Sleep at 10ish, awake at 3ish and back to sleep at 6ish. I had Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels and Al Jazeera to thank for keeping me sane while awake for three hours a night.
We awoke to another breakfast of beans, toast and meat (one day it was eggs, perhaps it was this one). Our plan for the day was to visit a Seventh Day Adventist hospital in a nearby village.
After some confusion about our plan (initially Chief Nana was going to accompany us, but due to scheduling conflicts he did not) and a quick stop in Kyekyewere, we headed to the hospital.
There was a wall surrounding the land and we had to pass through a gate to gain access to a parking place nearby the hospital. The gentleman who ran the hospital had been informed of our interest in seeing the facility by Chief Nana. Touring the hospital required first meeting this gentleman and explaining who we were and why we were visiting. This seemed standard enough.
We entered his office. Mom told our story and explained that she intends to build a clinic/hospital in Kyekyewere, etc.. The response from this gentleman was in this medically underserved nation utterly bizzare. An odd mix of welcoming and warning. He basically told us that we could not do anything as spectacular as his place and boasted about their lab and surgical suites.
After sitting there for way too long (by my impatient, western estimate), we were finally assigned a tour guide and took a walk around the hospital. Think single story, concrete, mostly open air and tons of people (very few elderly) waiting patiently on benches for a turn to be seen.
This is a photo taken by Chris White. We are talking with a head nurse.
We inspected the lab. This was a single approximately 10 x 10ft room with four or five people, a microscope and centrifuge. Nothing like the insanely huge high tech lab and pathology department at my academic hospital. We then moved on to the surgical suites. Nothing much to them. There were also a few ward beds for post operative, new mothers and other medical cases. Unfortunately, out of respect, I did not photograph at this hospital.
We finally met the one physician working full time at the hospital. He was a hairied thirty-something with very little time and a huge burden of responsibility. Not only did he have to round on all inpatient wards three times per day, but he also saw a steady stream of outpatients. I am not sure how these visits were distributed between the doctor and various midlevels. I couldn't fathom what drew him to his profession (seemingly an entirely different one from mine) being that it seemed he had to give up all hope of a life outside of work.
My nights quickly already acquired a pattern. Sleep at 10ish, awake at 3ish and back to sleep at 6ish. I had Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels and Al Jazeera to thank for keeping me sane while awake for three hours a night.
We awoke to another breakfast of beans, toast and meat (one day it was eggs, perhaps it was this one). Our plan for the day was to visit a Seventh Day Adventist hospital in a nearby village.
After some confusion about our plan (initially Chief Nana was going to accompany us, but due to scheduling conflicts he did not) and a quick stop in Kyekyewere, we headed to the hospital.
There was a wall surrounding the land and we had to pass through a gate to gain access to a parking place nearby the hospital. The gentleman who ran the hospital had been informed of our interest in seeing the facility by Chief Nana. Touring the hospital required first meeting this gentleman and explaining who we were and why we were visiting. This seemed standard enough.
We entered his office. Mom told our story and explained that she intends to build a clinic/hospital in Kyekyewere, etc.. The response from this gentleman was in this medically underserved nation utterly bizzare. An odd mix of welcoming and warning. He basically told us that we could not do anything as spectacular as his place and boasted about their lab and surgical suites.
After sitting there for way too long (by my impatient, western estimate), we were finally assigned a tour guide and took a walk around the hospital. Think single story, concrete, mostly open air and tons of people (very few elderly) waiting patiently on benches for a turn to be seen.
This is a photo taken by Chris White. We are talking with a head nurse.
We inspected the lab. This was a single approximately 10 x 10ft room with four or five people, a microscope and centrifuge. Nothing like the insanely huge high tech lab and pathology department at my academic hospital. We then moved on to the surgical suites. Nothing much to them. There were also a few ward beds for post operative, new mothers and other medical cases. Unfortunately, out of respect, I did not photograph at this hospital.
We finally met the one physician working full time at the hospital. He was a hairied thirty-something with very little time and a huge burden of responsibility. Not only did he have to round on all inpatient wards three times per day, but he also saw a steady stream of outpatients. I am not sure how these visits were distributed between the doctor and various midlevels. I couldn't fathom what drew him to his profession (seemingly an entirely different one from mine) being that it seemed he had to give up all hope of a life outside of work.
After leaving the clinic, we stopped by Kyekeywere to inspect some new habitat construction and briefly met a group from Northern Ireland working on two houses.
1 comment:
Just a coment here. We also visited the 'pharmacy'. Being a pharmacist, this was of interest to me. Much like the lab Erin mentioned, it was not the high tech pharmacy seen in the US. Not the rows of medication bottles, stacks of IV fluids and IV meds, no computer. It looked as if medications were tracked by writing them down in a book as they were dispensed to patients. There were 2 or 3 windows with young ladies sitting down (yes, you read right, sitting down!), documenting who was given what...all by hand. Don't know how they were labeled and I never did figure out where the pharmacist was! I don't remember even what the dispensed meds were put in, bottles (didn't see any) or enveloples as is done in the 'retail' settings in Ghana.
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