Blind Granny Jane

We have a lady in just now who has been wet for forty years.. and yet she has the most beautiful smile. She is also blind with cataracts and the hospital has paid for her to have one done and she will get the other done in a month.

Our field nurse who drove 6 hours on potholed roads out to her area to look for patients had to walk by footpath 3 miles to her village. Once confirmed that she had a fistula, which she would like repaired she was carried to the vehicle on someone’s back.

What a joy it is to send her home dry and seeing!

The bridge

This is the hardwood bridge which Peter & Tamba built this week to make space for their planned furniture display in front of the work bench and woodshed. Previously people crossed the ditch via a big rock and a tree root, and the women of the house are delighted with the new crossing. In the other photo you can see the house, very similar to Peter’s which is just behind.

The loan for new tools and timber is from friends in Scotland.

£1,000

In poorer Africa everyone lives in debt and any goods or money that appear are shared around the community for immediate use. Wealthy people are shunned as hoarders.

Yesterday morning some members of the visiting Rotary Club offered us £1,000 to buy equipment in the theatre. For interest I asked the five staff what they felt we use it on. They were stunned into silence, shocked that I should have mentioned such wealth (they earn £2 per day). Eventually the anaesthetic nurse, who earns 10 times as much (and therefore feels uncomfortable about discussions on money) said in complete seriousness, “You should give a bonus to each of the staff to motivate them.” (Never mind the motivation of the 50 other hospital staff!).

In fact I am putting in a request to Mercy Ships to start replacing the 4 sets of fistula instruments I use, which are elderly and sub optimal, and will deteriorate with time and use. These will hopefully benefit patients for years to come.

Publicity for Fistula treatment and prevention

Yesterday some of our ward staff and a few hundred others participated in a march to publicise the problem of ‘Obstetric Vaginal Fistula’. We spent three hours marching with a band and float with loudspeakers to the football stadium, where Dave spoke with others on ‘Fistula’. Note the main thoroughfare of the city blocked by pedestrians and vendors which is a regular occurence. Also note the famous 200 year old cotton tree in the centre of town.

There have been other opportunities too, lecturing a class at the university, and being interviewed on a national radio programme. Improving the care of women in childbirth is the only thing that will reduce this suffering among the poorest of the nation.