Maggie missing from Masindi
on Mangos, Monkeys and Maggie (Uganda), 22/Feb/2009 15:19, 34 days ago
THE PHOTOS SHOW THE SPECIAL BOARD AT COURT VIEW AND VILLAGERS FROM KIHAMYA WAITING TO BUY NETSThis has been a strange week with Maggie returning to the UK. Every body keeps asking where is Maggie and when is she coming back. The staff at Court View still do not really believe that she has left there and are still hoping she will go back.Masindi has been full of Muzungos this week with delegations of Bristol teachers and a christian group of over twenty. It is strange to see them all coping with the culture shock that we experienced in 2007. It makes me realise how I have adapted and things that horrified me when I first arrived I now just accept. I am not sure if that is a good thing and whether justified rage would be a better position but you can only stay angry for so long. The people who you really should be angry with are not in Masindi, they are in Kampala in the ministries and their air conditionned offices.So I did not fly in to a rage when the medical superintendant told me that he could not get morphine for a woman dying from uterine cancer, nor did I get angry when he said there were no sticks for the glucometer so I will have to guess at the values for the diabetic patients. I was pleased that somehow he managed to get hold of some insulin so I did not mind that we do not have any other diabetic drugs. We do not have amoxil, pain killers or hypertension drugs either. The two patients with severe TB I saw on Friday will have to wait for their drugs because we have run out of anti TB drugs again. We do not have leprosy drugs either and there are at least 4 new cases to be assessed this week. We do have ARVs and we were sent some "Plumpy Nut Sachets" to use for malnourished children. Unfortunately they are due to reach their use by date in March so we can not use them properly but at least some of the kids will get a short time benefit.In spite of the shortages there are successes here and every day you see patients who have benefitted from treatment. Most days the hospital performs caesarian sections for difficult births which undoubtedly saves lives. The maternal and neonatal death rate here is still high but it would be much higher without the skills of the surgeons who operate. Many of the patients with malaria would die without appropriate treatment and it is unusual for an adult to die in the hospital from malaria. Unfortunately often they do not get prompt treatment and the nurses forget to give them their quinine but most survive. Patients with pneumonia usually survive unless they are complicated by HIV. Most of the TB patients do well if they take their treatment and TB is one of the most satisfying things to treat here. Lots of patients have severe TB and look like walking skeletons when you first see them but after a few months treatment they are unrecognisable.The big problem here is prevention so that is why we are trying to provide mosquito nets and get people immunised. The meningitis has gone but there was a death from neonatal tetanus in one of the villages. All it takes to prevent neonatal tetanus is to give the mother a single shot bf tetanus immunisation in her pregnancy. This mother had attended 3 ante natal sessions but was not given an injection so the baby was not protected.We have purchased another 1000 mosquito nets for distribution this week. The vehicle is off the road but some how we need to get out to 3 more villages. We may have to take a special hire as the district appear incapable of providing vehicles and do not see the project as a priority. This all costs extra money but it is money well spent.