Tuesday evening I really needed some escapism from the world of the hospital so went to Mumba Point Restaurant with the other VSOs – they have a film club there and this week were showing “Letters to Juliet” – an big cheese-fest starring the girl from Mama Mia. It was just what I needed and we were all laughing hysterically at the cheese factor. Mumba Point is also (apparently) the only restaurant in Freetown where you can get sushi – they fly it in from Belgium – so comes at a price. I had some rather good humous and flat bread instead. Howard and Freya shared the biggest pizza I have ever seen so I will definitely be back there to sample one (pizzas being a rarity in SL)!
An SL Ceilidh (sort of)!
On Wednesday evening the Ballanta Music School put on an evening of Sierra Leonean Music and Dance. This was held at the British Council and was the largest gathering of white people I had seem for a long time (until the following night – see below!) It was a brilliant mix of traditional music – ranging from a group who improvised instruments using a stool, a saw and a battered looking table (this came from slave times we were told), to a large group of boys who danced around in a circle playing a cross between a vuvuzela and a didgeridoo, accompanied by a whistle and a bass drum. They looked a bit like football hooligans and I wondered what Simon Cowell would have made of them… The best group were led by the oldest man I have seen in SL so far who had the largest smile I have ever seen and was dressed in a rather fetching outfit in the colours of the SL flag – blue, white and green. They were followed by a fantastic bunch of boys and girls dancing (some were so thin I thought they should go to TFC…) The two youngest looked about three years old but were clearly developmentally older and they were hilarious doing cartwheels and backflips across the stage (hilarious because they very cutely kept accidentally banging into one another and knocking themselves over).
“Cow” for dinner
Before the show Becky and I got something to eat at the British Council – we were offered some cous-cous. Becky asked if there was any meat in said cous-cous; we were told that, yes, there was “cow” with the cous-cous. Becky asked if they would kindly take the cow out of hers’. I said, yes I would love to have some cow with my cous-cous. And very nice it was too!
How the other half live….
Thursday evening and all British Nationals in SL had been invited to IMATT (the British army base here) for a concert put on by the Well Cathedral School choir. We got all dressed up to go out and had a lovely evening. I felt like we had been transported back to Oxford – the choir girls were those Oxford preppy types with crazy hair all over the place and terribly posh voices (I’m allowed to say this because I live in Oxford….). They were amazing singers and musicians though and I had tingles down my spine as they sung The Flower Duet (the BA advert music). There was also a flautist (who has just been made principal flautist for the British National Orchestra), a trumpeter, a saxophonist, a number of pianists and a girl who hula-hooped to some African drumming.
The evening was held in the Officer’s Mess so I also got some military chat and met a really nice RAF regiment couple who have just arrived. IMATT is in a fantastic location up the hills overlooked by the American Embassy. They have a beautiful outdoor pool and a gorgeous view from the balcony of the Mess (not that I’m jealous of course…) All in all it was a thoroughly nice evening – a Very British Evening. (Margaret and Roger – I also met Anthony – Roger’s counterpart here in SL – so it was great to finally meet him!)
Sunday 24 October 2010
Saturday 16 October 2010
Hospital Goings On
So…. Perhaps not surprisingly, I still don’t have my medical registration yet. Its getting a bit ridiculous really…
In the meantime – I have finished doing my lectures - another on genetics and two respiratory, although the students also asked me to cover neonatal tetanus (cause I’m the world’s leading expert on that… not!), childhood obesity (in Sierra Leone! I am still pondering on why!), seizures (okay that’s important – a lot of children come in with “convulsions” or “shake shake” but I’m never sure if this is a seizure, a rigor, or what, as the history taking is… somewhat deficient….) and “birth asphyxia”. HIE is fairly common here and as a good proportion of my students want to be obstetricians one day I have tried to instil that “prevention is better than cure”. So thanks to James and Dr Anthony for sending out the slides! The students are away doing obs and gynae lectures for three weeks before coming back to us for clinical teaching.
We had an M&M meeting on Thursday. A lot more mortality than morbidity…. Its only the third M&M they have had here so everyone’s still getting used to the fact that its not a place to fight about whose fault the death was – the doctor’s for not reviewing them enough or changing the antibiotics, the nurses’ for not giving the said medication or not doing observations, the mothers’ for not taking them in soon enough or for discharging against medical advice, the maintenance people for not sorting out any running water, the ministry of health’s for not providing any equipment or the government’s for not educating the population… the list goes on….
Anyway, it was an interesting meeting – most children (apparently) die from severe malaria and severe anaemia. I say apparently because although we actually have access to blood films and rapid antigen tests, no one actually does them… So there is no way to really tell what they die from.
I feel I’m being critical when there is a huge amount of good stuff happening. Some of the nurses are fantastic – they put in all the cannulas – and the triage is great. It was Global Handwashing Day (yes, without running water in the hospital….) on Friday so Becky and Gibril (one of the SL nurses from the observation ward) had organised an education day for the staff and parents. It was so much fun going around the wards. Some of the nurses from the Therapeutic Feeing Centre had made up a skit and then sang Krio songs to get the message across. It was a lot of fun and all the better that it was done mostly by the Sierra Leonean staff.
I’ve been writing for a while… so… more later! I'll try to get up some photos at some point too, now that Matt the vodaphone photographer has fixed my camera!
So…. Perhaps not surprisingly, I still don’t have my medical registration yet. Its getting a bit ridiculous really…
In the meantime – I have finished doing my lectures - another on genetics and two respiratory, although the students also asked me to cover neonatal tetanus (cause I’m the world’s leading expert on that… not!), childhood obesity (in Sierra Leone! I am still pondering on why!), seizures (okay that’s important – a lot of children come in with “convulsions” or “shake shake” but I’m never sure if this is a seizure, a rigor, or what, as the history taking is… somewhat deficient….) and “birth asphyxia”. HIE is fairly common here and as a good proportion of my students want to be obstetricians one day I have tried to instil that “prevention is better than cure”. So thanks to James and Dr Anthony for sending out the slides! The students are away doing obs and gynae lectures for three weeks before coming back to us for clinical teaching.
We had an M&M meeting on Thursday. A lot more mortality than morbidity…. Its only the third M&M they have had here so everyone’s still getting used to the fact that its not a place to fight about whose fault the death was – the doctor’s for not reviewing them enough or changing the antibiotics, the nurses’ for not giving the said medication or not doing observations, the mothers’ for not taking them in soon enough or for discharging against medical advice, the maintenance people for not sorting out any running water, the ministry of health’s for not providing any equipment or the government’s for not educating the population… the list goes on….
Anyway, it was an interesting meeting – most children (apparently) die from severe malaria and severe anaemia. I say apparently because although we actually have access to blood films and rapid antigen tests, no one actually does them… So there is no way to really tell what they die from.
I feel I’m being critical when there is a huge amount of good stuff happening. Some of the nurses are fantastic – they put in all the cannulas – and the triage is great. It was Global Handwashing Day (yes, without running water in the hospital….) on Friday so Becky and Gibril (one of the SL nurses from the observation ward) had organised an education day for the staff and parents. It was so much fun going around the wards. Some of the nurses from the Therapeutic Feeing Centre had made up a skit and then sang Krio songs to get the message across. It was a lot of fun and all the better that it was done mostly by the Sierra Leonean staff.
I’ve been writing for a while… so… more later! I'll try to get up some photos at some point too, now that Matt the vodaphone photographer has fixed my camera!
Transport Fun
So there are several methods of transport in Freetown – ranging from poda podas (minibuses) to taxis (shared or chartered) to lifts with friends (a VSO favourite!) or walking. There are also okadas (motorbikes) but I have no intention of ever getting anywhere on one of these.
Walking is a full on assault of the senses – there are very few pavements in Freetown so you always have to be on your guard not to fall down a pothole or sewer. There are constantly people saying “Hello how are you?” or “White Girl!” or “I love you”. Taxis and podas tend to enjoy driving nearly into you as they assume you want a lift somewhere. You could buy any number of things while walking around ranging from peanuts to bread to plumpinut or Starter F75 (the nutritional supplements for malnourished children which are provided free by Unicef…)
I’ve only been in a few podas. They tend to have almost no space in and I’ve always been fairly dubious that they would EVER pass an MOT.
Shard taxis can also be a challenge. You have to shout in the window where you want to go as they drive past, and if they’re going that way, they might stop. I’ve been in a few taxis which say they’re going one way, and then suddenly change their mind half way there….
Getting lifts with friends is happily how I’ve mostly been getting to work. The wonderful Becky from Welbodi has been bereft of colleagues for the last few weeks while Sandra is away so she and her driver Usman come to get us most mornings. Usman is a legend. He knows his way around Freetown like the back of his hand and has a lot of tricks to get through the notoriously slow Freetown traffic.
Walking is a full on assault of the senses – there are very few pavements in Freetown so you always have to be on your guard not to fall down a pothole or sewer. There are constantly people saying “Hello how are you?” or “White Girl!” or “I love you”. Taxis and podas tend to enjoy driving nearly into you as they assume you want a lift somewhere. You could buy any number of things while walking around ranging from peanuts to bread to plumpinut or Starter F75 (the nutritional supplements for malnourished children which are provided free by Unicef…)
I’ve only been in a few podas. They tend to have almost no space in and I’ve always been fairly dubious that they would EVER pass an MOT.
Shard taxis can also be a challenge. You have to shout in the window where you want to go as they drive past, and if they’re going that way, they might stop. I’ve been in a few taxis which say they’re going one way, and then suddenly change their mind half way there….
Getting lifts with friends is happily how I’ve mostly been getting to work. The wonderful Becky from Welbodi has been bereft of colleagues for the last few weeks while Sandra is away so she and her driver Usman come to get us most mornings. Usman is a legend. He knows his way around Freetown like the back of his hand and has a lot of tricks to get through the notoriously slow Freetown traffic.
Beaches and Football
I’m just back from the beach – again? I hear you say. I went this afternoon to Lakka Beach with some of the lovely people from The Mercy Ships hospital. We had a lovely swim, walk and some ace barracuda with chips and rice for lunch. We left just in time before a tropical downpour. The Mercy Ships have a maternity ward, an obstetric fistula clinic and a children’s outpatients clinic. It was nice meeting up with a couple of their doctors and some midwives.
The Football
So…last Sunday afternoon, we went to see the football. At least we attempted to see the football. We (Cat and I) went with our lovely neighbour Joe to see if we could get tickets for the SL vs South Africa game for the knockout stages of the Africa Cup of Nations. So.. getting the tickets was the easy bit. We got into the ground and were just going into the stadium but it honestly looked like hell on earth actually inside the stadium. There were FAR more people there than the stadium was clearly designed for. My phone and purse were expertly pickpocketed (luckily there was only about 50p in the purse and the phone was only worth £3.50, and I’ve already got the same number back, along with most of my credit – I just had to pay to get another phone unlocked. I was very impressed with the mobile phone company). So we wandered around for a bit trying to see if there was anywhere we could go that wasn’t totally packed. Crowd control was clearly NOT on the agenda of anyone there, apart from some policeman using their truncheons to get people to stand back.
Being crushed was not what I had in mind for today. We decided to leave. The lovely Joe got some nicer policemen to escort us out of the stadium. The policemen were most surprised that we didn’t want to stay and watch the game!
The Football
So…last Sunday afternoon, we went to see the football. At least we attempted to see the football. We (Cat and I) went with our lovely neighbour Joe to see if we could get tickets for the SL vs South Africa game for the knockout stages of the Africa Cup of Nations. So.. getting the tickets was the easy bit. We got into the ground and were just going into the stadium but it honestly looked like hell on earth actually inside the stadium. There were FAR more people there than the stadium was clearly designed for. My phone and purse were expertly pickpocketed (luckily there was only about 50p in the purse and the phone was only worth £3.50, and I’ve already got the same number back, along with most of my credit – I just had to pay to get another phone unlocked. I was very impressed with the mobile phone company). So we wandered around for a bit trying to see if there was anywhere we could go that wasn’t totally packed. Crowd control was clearly NOT on the agenda of anyone there, apart from some policeman using their truncheons to get people to stand back.
Being crushed was not what I had in mind for today. We decided to leave. The lovely Joe got some nicer policemen to escort us out of the stadium. The policemen were most surprised that we didn’t want to stay and watch the game!
Sunday 10 October 2010
So now I am a lecturer...
So I am now a lecturer…
I have given my first three lectures this week – two on cardiology and one on genetics. They seem to have gone down well. They are a nice bunch of students – 27 of them all in fifth year (out of six). In fifth year they only do paediatrics and obs and gynae! Thankfully they are responsive to answering questions and are good at listing off the things by rote (things which I can no longer remember…). They were all very grateful when I sent them off half an hour early on Tuesday too. Next week I have one more genetics and two on respiratory paeds. Thanks to everyone in Oxford whose presentations I have “borrowed” in order to make my lecture slides.
Evenings Out
I had a lovely evening out at Frankie and Howard’s house on Wednesday. They are ex-VSOs and are now the honorary aunt and uncle of all new VSOs. We had some lovely food including an amazing chilli con carne. I was most excited as this is the first mince I have seen for a while. Apparently you can buy it in Monoprix (the fab, but expensive, supermarket - £3 for a jar of peanut butter (of which I am eating a lot), over a pound for a tin of beans). It was good to meet up with everyone and chill out. Howard also gave lots of tips of things to do in SL – so anyone coming to visit (Ella) I have lots of info for you!
I also visited the Mercy Ships for an evening service last Sunday – it was really nice and again, good to meet up with other people. The Mercy Ships have an obstetric fistula clinic and paediatric outpatients. The set-up there is so…. Organised…. In comparison to the hospital.
On Friday evening we had Beth, Theo and Alex round for dinner – I made bean stew with rice and potatoes and Cat made pancakes for pudding. Beth had bought some nutella which made a perfect topping to the pancakes! I get excited at small things!
And to the beach…
Yesterday we had a lovely day – a bit of a lie in, then over to Beth and Theo’s. There we met Tash and Alex (the VSO Dr’s in Makeni). It was great to see them and exchange tales of woe from the hospital. If I think its bad in Ola During, it’s a thousand times worse in Makeni. The parents have to go out and BUY the cannulas there. At least in ODCH we have a ready supply of them, along with fluids and IV antibiotics and antimalarials to go through them.
Anyway, Tash and Alex dispatched themselves to buy a car. The rest of us, meanwhile got a taxi out to Lakka beach, where we had three hours of pure heaven. I had a couple of long swims in the warm Atlantic (nice to get some exercise after a lot of sitting around in cars) and a long walk along the beach. It was absolutely beautiful, and hardly anyone there and no hassle. Bounty beaches indeed (the SL beaches were used in the Bounty ads in the 80s).
We finished the day by watching sunset from a taxi as we drove past Lumley Beach then a lovely dinner at The Bamboo Hut.
I have given my first three lectures this week – two on cardiology and one on genetics. They seem to have gone down well. They are a nice bunch of students – 27 of them all in fifth year (out of six). In fifth year they only do paediatrics and obs and gynae! Thankfully they are responsive to answering questions and are good at listing off the things by rote (things which I can no longer remember…). They were all very grateful when I sent them off half an hour early on Tuesday too. Next week I have one more genetics and two on respiratory paeds. Thanks to everyone in Oxford whose presentations I have “borrowed” in order to make my lecture slides.
Evenings Out
I had a lovely evening out at Frankie and Howard’s house on Wednesday. They are ex-VSOs and are now the honorary aunt and uncle of all new VSOs. We had some lovely food including an amazing chilli con carne. I was most excited as this is the first mince I have seen for a while. Apparently you can buy it in Monoprix (the fab, but expensive, supermarket - £3 for a jar of peanut butter (of which I am eating a lot), over a pound for a tin of beans). It was good to meet up with everyone and chill out. Howard also gave lots of tips of things to do in SL – so anyone coming to visit (Ella) I have lots of info for you!
I also visited the Mercy Ships for an evening service last Sunday – it was really nice and again, good to meet up with other people. The Mercy Ships have an obstetric fistula clinic and paediatric outpatients. The set-up there is so…. Organised…. In comparison to the hospital.
On Friday evening we had Beth, Theo and Alex round for dinner – I made bean stew with rice and potatoes and Cat made pancakes for pudding. Beth had bought some nutella which made a perfect topping to the pancakes! I get excited at small things!
And to the beach…
Yesterday we had a lovely day – a bit of a lie in, then over to Beth and Theo’s. There we met Tash and Alex (the VSO Dr’s in Makeni). It was great to see them and exchange tales of woe from the hospital. If I think its bad in Ola During, it’s a thousand times worse in Makeni. The parents have to go out and BUY the cannulas there. At least in ODCH we have a ready supply of them, along with fluids and IV antibiotics and antimalarials to go through them.
Anyway, Tash and Alex dispatched themselves to buy a car. The rest of us, meanwhile got a taxi out to Lakka beach, where we had three hours of pure heaven. I had a couple of long swims in the warm Atlantic (nice to get some exercise after a lot of sitting around in cars) and a long walk along the beach. It was absolutely beautiful, and hardly anyone there and no hassle. Bounty beaches indeed (the SL beaches were used in the Bounty ads in the 80s).
We finished the day by watching sunset from a taxi as we drove past Lumley Beach then a lovely dinner at The Bamboo Hut.
Sunday 3 October 2010
Two Weeks in Freetown
The Exciting News
So the exciting news of this week is that I now have the internet at home. At least I’m paying for the internet at home. It jumps between being fairly reliable and quick to completely dropping out when I am mid-trying to do something. A bit frustrating.
The other news of this week is that we started in the hospital. I’d say we started working in the hospital but as I still don’t have my medical registration I can’t really do any proper work…
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation
So on Monday we (me and various other VSO health volunteers) were taken to meet the Chief Medical Officer (of the country) along with various other high hidyins (?spelling). After the meeting I was interviewed on tape by the press officer who asked what was my background, what was I going to do and wasn’t it wonderful that there is now free health care for under 5’s and pregnant and lactating women.
Ola During Children’s Hospital
We were driven over to the hospital in a Ministry of Health and Sanitation jeep and were shown around by Nadine, a German nurse working with an NGO called Cap Anamur. Within about half an hour of arriving I had witnessed the deaths of a set of preterm twins in SCBU. Very sad.
I have spent the rest of the week attached to various medical officers on their ward rounds. The wards are: the ER and “ICU” (for those of you with any sort of medical background, this bears no resemblance whatsoever to any PICU I have ever been in), Ward 1 (supposedly for more stable children), Ward 3 (with a TB unit), an isolation ward, a separate measles ward, a therapeutic feeding ward (actually although this is full of emaciated children it is the happiest place in the hospital), and a SCBU (which they call S-C-B-U which I find terribly confusing!). This also bears almost no resemblance to any SCBU/NICU I have ever been in apart from the fact that there are some incubators!
I have spent most time in ER and ICU this week but actually its difficult to spend much time there. I’ll go into more details in another blog but its fairly upsetting. Its frustrating not being able to do anything without my registration.
So I am now a Lecturer…
What I HAVE achieved this week in work is meeting Professor Tamra. She is an amazing woman, she is a Nigerian Prof of Paediatrics and is working for the UNFPA and helping to set up a Sierra Leone postgraduate paediatric course. She is in charge of the medical student teaching and has asked me to become involved in this. So I have now become a cardiology, respiratory and genetics lecturer…. My first lecture is tomorrow morning and is scheduled to be a TWO HOUR lecture on cardiology. Followed by a further TWO hours on Tuesday (also cardiology). Not sure I can actually talk for that long. Not really sure I even know that much about cardiology… but I have scraped together 129 slides for the two lectures…. Wish me luck!
The Weekend
It’s now the weekend. Cat and I had a most productive day yesterday. We went out with a list of things to do and achieved them all! We changed some money in the supermarket (the rate is Le 6200 to the pound – not bad at all). We got a taxi to take us into town. We got slightly lost while looking for the Zain shop. We found it. Wer registered our mobile phones so that we don’t get cut off. We found the Sierratel shop after a bit of searching around. We spent 45 minutes in there and came out with dongles and two months supply of dodgy internet connection. We found Crown Bakery. We had a COFFEE and a CROISSANT! It was lovely. And there is a HAND DRYER in the toilet! My new favourite place in Freetown (apart from our balcony). We got a poda poda back home. We bought some onions at the market and some bread from the bread man. We then couldn’t connect to the internet so one phonecall to Beth (our resident IT VSO person) and we were invited to dinner. Theo had cooked all sorts of lovely Sierra Leonean food which we washed down with some boxed Spanish wine. And I managed to speak (very briefly mind you) to my father-in-law on Skype!
Its now Sunday and I’m sorting out my genetics lectures for later in the week. This evening I’m off to the Mercy Ships to meet with some friends of friends of friends from Shetland to an evening service.
PS
The internet is so slow and unreliable I am sorry I can’t reply to all emails but thank you for all your messages and thoughts. Love and miss you all! Andy has my phone number if you want to text me (its very nice getting texts from home and apparently it only costs you lot 17p per text – hint!)
So the exciting news of this week is that I now have the internet at home. At least I’m paying for the internet at home. It jumps between being fairly reliable and quick to completely dropping out when I am mid-trying to do something. A bit frustrating.
The other news of this week is that we started in the hospital. I’d say we started working in the hospital but as I still don’t have my medical registration I can’t really do any proper work…
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation
So on Monday we (me and various other VSO health volunteers) were taken to meet the Chief Medical Officer (of the country) along with various other high hidyins (?spelling). After the meeting I was interviewed on tape by the press officer who asked what was my background, what was I going to do and wasn’t it wonderful that there is now free health care for under 5’s and pregnant and lactating women.
Ola During Children’s Hospital
We were driven over to the hospital in a Ministry of Health and Sanitation jeep and were shown around by Nadine, a German nurse working with an NGO called Cap Anamur. Within about half an hour of arriving I had witnessed the deaths of a set of preterm twins in SCBU. Very sad.
I have spent the rest of the week attached to various medical officers on their ward rounds. The wards are: the ER and “ICU” (for those of you with any sort of medical background, this bears no resemblance whatsoever to any PICU I have ever been in), Ward 1 (supposedly for more stable children), Ward 3 (with a TB unit), an isolation ward, a separate measles ward, a therapeutic feeding ward (actually although this is full of emaciated children it is the happiest place in the hospital), and a SCBU (which they call S-C-B-U which I find terribly confusing!). This also bears almost no resemblance to any SCBU/NICU I have ever been in apart from the fact that there are some incubators!
I have spent most time in ER and ICU this week but actually its difficult to spend much time there. I’ll go into more details in another blog but its fairly upsetting. Its frustrating not being able to do anything without my registration.
So I am now a Lecturer…
What I HAVE achieved this week in work is meeting Professor Tamra. She is an amazing woman, she is a Nigerian Prof of Paediatrics and is working for the UNFPA and helping to set up a Sierra Leone postgraduate paediatric course. She is in charge of the medical student teaching and has asked me to become involved in this. So I have now become a cardiology, respiratory and genetics lecturer…. My first lecture is tomorrow morning and is scheduled to be a TWO HOUR lecture on cardiology. Followed by a further TWO hours on Tuesday (also cardiology). Not sure I can actually talk for that long. Not really sure I even know that much about cardiology… but I have scraped together 129 slides for the two lectures…. Wish me luck!
The Weekend
It’s now the weekend. Cat and I had a most productive day yesterday. We went out with a list of things to do and achieved them all! We changed some money in the supermarket (the rate is Le 6200 to the pound – not bad at all). We got a taxi to take us into town. We got slightly lost while looking for the Zain shop. We found it. Wer registered our mobile phones so that we don’t get cut off. We found the Sierratel shop after a bit of searching around. We spent 45 minutes in there and came out with dongles and two months supply of dodgy internet connection. We found Crown Bakery. We had a COFFEE and a CROISSANT! It was lovely. And there is a HAND DRYER in the toilet! My new favourite place in Freetown (apart from our balcony). We got a poda poda back home. We bought some onions at the market and some bread from the bread man. We then couldn’t connect to the internet so one phonecall to Beth (our resident IT VSO person) and we were invited to dinner. Theo had cooked all sorts of lovely Sierra Leonean food which we washed down with some boxed Spanish wine. And I managed to speak (very briefly mind you) to my father-in-law on Skype!
Its now Sunday and I’m sorting out my genetics lectures for later in the week. This evening I’m off to the Mercy Ships to meet with some friends of friends of friends from Shetland to an evening service.
PS
The internet is so slow and unreliable I am sorry I can’t reply to all emails but thank you for all your messages and thoughts. Love and miss you all! Andy has my phone number if you want to text me (its very nice getting texts from home and apparently it only costs you lot 17p per text – hint!)
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