After all of the hard work getting the operating theatre up and running at Kawempe health centre we finally did the first caesarean section in 18 months! This is a massive step forward. The theatre was tested to the max, firstly the theatre light broke so we had to turn the operating table towards the window so we could see what we were doing, then the power went! The midwife on duty didn't know how to turn the generator on, but she finally worked it out 30 minutes later, if this had been at night we really would have been in trouble. The mother and baby did really well and were discharged 2 days later!
Last week I went to join a team of British doctors, nurses and midwives who were volunteering at Hoima hospital (about 200km from Kampala). They set up project similar to the Liverpool-Mulago partnership 3 years ago and visit Hoima hospital several times a year. The hospital is much smaller than Mulago and therefore much more manageable. I visited the hospital for 2 days with one of the midwives from Mulago. The aim of our visit was to implement and train the midwives about patient observations and monitoring using a scoring system (MEWS). The visit was successful and we returned a week later to give the midwives their own 'kit' which has all of the equipment needed to perform basic observations.
I had a welcomed visit from Prof Louise Ackers last week. We had a busy week of meetings at the Ministry of Health and Kampala city council. We are really pushing the authorities to help to appoint medical officers (doctors) at the health centres that we are working at. It is impossible to recruit medical officers because of poor working conditions and low pay, it is much more attractive to them to work in the private sector or for NGO's who pay big bucks. The meetings were successful but I imagine it will take a while before we see any medical officers in these health centres.
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