Murgwanza Hospital

The hospital where I will be spending six weeks is very different from an Australian hospital. The head of the hospital is only a 2nd or 3rd year out doctor and all of the other 'doctors' in the hospital are actually assistant medical officers who receive 3-5 years of training and then perform surgery!!! The patients are required to pay for everything, including the gloves, needles and syringes and families must supply the food.

So far we have spent most of our time in the childrens' ward, where they have a total of about 40 beds, including a malnitrition unit. The 'ICU' is only distinguised from the wards by the fact that it is only a 4 bed room and it has an oxygen concentrator (no oxygen cylinders are available over here). Most of the children we have seen have malaria and many of them have needed blood transfusions.

Church

Last Sunday I went with Rose (our supervisor) and a visiting missionary, Dorothy, to a local church. It was an amazing experience and we were treated as honoured guests. After a half hour drive almost to the Burundian border we cam to the church to find a large Sunday School outside singing and dancing. We were taken into the pastor's house and served chai (very sweet, usually milky tea) and then went into the church. We were given seats up on the platform facing the congregation along with the pastor and evangelists from the church (all of whom were wearing black cassocks and then white robes over the top). The church was a well off one as it had a brick buolding with concrete floors and had an electric piano. The service went for 3.5 hrs in total with a lot of singing from the two church choirs, a long sermon entirely in Swahili which Dorothy translated for me, three offerings for different things and communion. After church we were served lunch in the pastor's house and it is amazing to see how different things are over here than they are in Australia. The hosts may not be able to afford the food they serve but becuase you are honoured guests they will give you food and go hungry themselves rather than break the custom of hospitality. This is a humbling experience.

The Journey

 After leaving Perth at 10:30pm on Tuesday I arrived in Dubai early Wedneday morning (local time) and managed to run into Naomi and Claire (the other 2 girls going to Murgwanza) after only an hour wandering around Dubai airport. We passed the time by playing cards in McDonalds before catching our flight to Nairobi.

Nairobi was fun as our luggage was only checked as far as there and so we had to pick it up to put on the next flight. Their luggage collection area is after the visa point so we had to find an airline representative to walk us down to collect our luggage. After about an hour, with awful visions of finding our luggage had been taken, we managed to locate someone to takes us to collect our bags, which were still circling on the carousel. We then had 10 hours to kill before our flight to Kigali, which is not an easy thing to do in a poorly airconditioned airport after being awake for 36 hours.

Our flight into Kigali, Rwanda arrived at around midnight and after buying visas we discovered that Customs is merely a guy standing at a doorway who makes you remove all visible plastic bags (Rwanda is going plastic bag free) and then let us through, no checks, no questions – I had no idea that getting my bag of medical supplies through would be so easy. A person from the guest house we had booked into met us and took us back to the guest house where we fell into grateful sleep.

The taxi took us to the border with Tanzania the next morning and we only had one flat tire on the way and our driver actually had a functional spare!! Rwanda is beautiful and doing quite well. The roads are all well paved (less potholes than most Australian roads) and clean and the buildings are well kept.  Kigali,  the capital, is in a valley and is beautifully green.

We crossed into Tanzania at the Rusumo Falls and after being proposed to by the Border officer in Tanzania we were finally in Tanzania!!!!

The difference once you cross into Tanzania is remarkable. The roads become potholed and are not paved in all places and many of the houses are only woven sticks and mud. The better houses are brick or mud brick with a concrete render and concrete floors.  We crossed a river just after leaving the border on a wooden raft pulled across by three or four men, which was an interesting experience.

Our house, called Masista, is in the hospital grounds and is very nice. It is brick with cement floors and limewashed walls, which leave white streaks on your clothes when you lean on them. We have electricity and running water 24hrs a day. We even have a brand new microwave, fridge and electric kettle. To make sure we still feel like it is Africa we have no hot water and so are getting quite good at bucket baths.

Leaving

Warning to other medical students: Boxes of gloves are surprisingly heavy when you want to pack 10 boxes.

I am off to Tanzania tomorrow night to spend just over 6 weeks at a hospital in rural Tanzania as part of my 6th year medical studies. I will try to keep this up to date to let you know how I am and what is happening.