JUST A FEW….
Complications and issues to address. Looks like I will be busy for a while.
My days have become a little routine of late…but I am sure they will lead to some pretty busy days in the near future. Up at 6 and down to morning devo at the center of the hospital in the gazebo by 7:30. Most days I make it a little earlier and check in on each of the patient wards just to say morning greetings and see how many patients we have. Then I meet with Exavery who is the acting Hospital Secretary (Katibu). We discuss what will be happening today and the items we need to check up on from earlier days.
The rest of the day is filled with meeting those who have been asked to do or make some changes to make sure thanks are moving in the right directions. And, we have some potential hospital plans coming up in the near future which we have also been working on. I will let you in on those things as we get started.
The hospital was all paper charts when I was here before. Now they have a computer system for all the departments. We had begun preparations for this just prior to my departure in 2018. I am learning the system as quickly as possible and doing chart reviews as well as looking closely at how the supply chain works or where it doesn’t. As with all clinical staff, when the computer is introduced many areas of charting are often left out. We will be doing some review and improvements in the very near future.
I am sure you remember the 2 boys from my last post. Frank accompanied them and their family to the Mbeya Hospital for evaluation for their ostomies and up-coming surgeries. However, the 2 month old baby was having difficulty breathing and was admitted to the hospital. This delayed our plan to apply for insurance as it took Frank all day to handle the admission for the baby and the follow-up for Brayan. Brayan will return to see the doctor again next week. As for the baby, I hate that he is in Mbeya. It may only be 46 miles to Mbeya, but it takes 2 hours to drive there if you are in a car. A bus will take a lot longer due to the frequent stops to pick up and drop off riders. The mother is there by herself with the baby. I will try to go in on Monday to follow-up if they are still in the hospital.
Getting hospital care is pretty frustrating here especially for Americans. All services, medications and supplies must be paid for before anything gets done. Frank had pre-paid for 3 nights of admission, a whole list of meds the doctor wanted and the supplies needed to care for the baby. That was on Thursday. Today, we were notified the nurses used all the IV catheters Frank paid for and were unable to get an IV started, so they needed more money before they would try again!!! So, here we are 2 days later, and the baby still has not received any antibiotics. I had Frank send more money to the mother, but we will go on Monday to see how things are going. Please pray for baby Promise and his mother.
I have been spending a little time getting to know my team mates, Nathan and Kristi Ferguson. Nathan and Kristi have 2 daughters and a new baby son. Nathan works with the farm project and Kristi is very busy with the children. I am very blessed to have such a nice couple as my team mates here. We may only see each other once a week, but it is nice to have others to talk to from back home.
Howell and Mary Ferguson arrived from America today. Howell is the Chimala Mission Stateside Coordinator and, yes, they are Nathan’s parents. I have worked with Howell and Mary before. They are wonderful people. As a matter of fact, they were here in 2015 when I fell and broke my back here in Chimala. They will be staying here for 3 months, I believe. There are several works Howell wishes to over-see and a few of them may be at the hospital….so watch for up-coming news!
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