Daily Life

My working day is never the same. It's tricky to give you an idea of what I will be doing each week as I never know what my path will come across from one day to the next. I am however starting to feel more comfortable and settled in with my work here. I am making good friends, useful contacts and starting to find my way round all the clinics and hospitals that we visit. Most importantly and this is taking the most time to adjust to - I am learning to wait! To wait in line in the hospital, to wait for someone who is just popping to the bank for '5' minutes, to wait for a taxi. Waiting is draining and frustrating and something that is taking the most effort to adjust to. 

Giving IV Antibiotics

My working day will usually start at 06.30 when my alarm goes off. Myself and a Ugandan nurse who I work with on site share the drug rounds during the week so that I don't have to get up at this time every single day for the year that I am here! We have 6 children living at GSF who are HIV + and require medication at 7am and 7pm strictly every day. I will get up, dressed and make my way over to those children for 7am. The HIV drugs will need administering and the children will need to be closely observed to ensure that the tablets actually go into their mouth and they swallow them! After this I will visit  the other houses and say hi to every child, house mother and auntie and see if there are any illnesses, wounds or problems that I need to deal with. With around 80 children living here and 20 or so staff it can take anything from 1 hour (on a good day!) to well over 2 hours. Mornings are a great time to 'glance' over everyone before they all run off in different directions and it's a great time to chat to kids and house mums, answer questions and just spend time with them all.

After rounds I will come back to my house and have breakfast before heading over to the school to say good morning to Auntie Jane who works in the school office. Auntie Jane is the welfare officer and has a sick bed in her office. I will be called during the day to see children at school if they are unwell. 

So, if I have no hospital trips to go on during the day I will be based on site seeing children and staff in the school and on site. I will take the opportunity of being around to catch up with documentation in the kids health records. Also, to look at who needs deworming, ringworm treatment, weight checks and general health assessments. Malaria tests happen frequently and I will do lots of them and administer malaria treatment throughout the week. Also my role includes administering antibiotics to kids who are unwell and liaising with doctors in the local town how to treat certain illnesses and infections. Treating burns are common with school children as there are so many open fires used in the villages.

Weighing a malnourished
baby at the feeding clinic.

A day on site is never dull, I never know what will show up! Sometimes I will teach the house mums about a medical issues. They always have lots of questions and I spend a lot of my time trying to educate about basic skills like hygiene, hand washing and wound care. I will purchase nappies and ensure that these are given out to the house mums weekly. I will organise drugs for the week for those children on HIV and seizure medication. Hand in receipts and book transport for hospital visits and such like. There is also a Social Worker on site and she will often call me to go to the offices and see an elderly client or malnourished babies that need support and a health check.

On days where I am out I will usually be out all day. Nothing happens quickly here in Africa! I  accompany children on hospital appointments, dentist visits and trips to clinics. Routinely I go to Kampala once a month with the HIV kids. That is always a long day waiting in line to be seen by a number of different professionals. The kids enjoy their days out because they are missing school and they get lunch and a soda brought for them! We have a number of regular appointments that I go to with certain children - asthma clinic, seizure clinic, dentist appointments, hospital admissions for children having surgery. I will usually be off site at least once a week and often more than this.

Sebastian being admitted for Cleft Palate Surgery

On top of this I keep busy by playing with the kids, visiting the babies for cuddles, going out to the villages to help with community projects, learning Luganda and currently avoiding snakes!  There are some great highs that I am experiencing - building relationships with the Children being the main one. Some of the lows are that life is often frustrating here. It's hard to get things completed in any sort of fast to 'normal' time scale and everything is complicated, there are no straight forward answers to any problem! It saddens me that for some of the HIV kids there will be little that is able to be done for them if they get really sick. One of the boys here is on his last line of HIV drugs that he can be on and that are available in Uganda and drug tests have shown that he is resistant to these. There are currently no other options available here in Uganda but it is frustrating to know that these drugs are available in the West but are not allowed here by law as they are not licensed. 

Micah - one of our beautiful and healthy boys!!

Well, that is a taster of my day to day life here. It's hard to describe a typical day as no day is the same. There is lots of variety and every day is interesting, challenging and full of learning opportunities. Last night I was called at 3am to see a little girl who was unwell with breathing problems which is the first time (and I'm sure not the last!) that I will called out of my bed nursing during the night. I thank God daily for energy and the ability to be able to preform my role here in the midst of all the uncertainties with health care provisions and in dealing with 

varying standards of hospitals here. Also as I learn to work in and deal with the culture that is all new to me. I pray that I'll be able to work to the best of my ability and to keep going during the good and bad times and those times when I have run out of energy, taking each day at a time and taking time each day to walk with Him.