City Break

I’ve had another busy couple of weeks and very much enjoyed a trip to Addis Ababa for the Ethiopian Pediatric Society Annual Conference.

I feel that I am beginning to make small changes at the hospital and that there is a definite willingness from the staff to work together.  The first training session with the two neonatal nurses went well.  We worked together to design a ‘Welcome to the Neonatal Unit’ poster which included photographs of the nurses and some ‘ground rules’ about infection control for staff and visitors.  I wrote the wording in English and one of the students translated it into Amharic, the national language.  The nurses very much appreciated having their own copies of the photos and seemed very pleased with the plastic bottles for alcohol rub – these were tied to the cots in no time!

Progress with infection control: bucket of water and soap for handwashing...

... and cotside alcohol rub

I am really pleased that a midwife with neonatal training has started working on the Neonatal Unit and that a neonatal nurse who has been on long term leave has also returned.  It was great that all four of the neonatal nurses were able to attend my second training session about intravenous fluids.  We’ll practise the various calculations again this week and I’ve printed some supportive material to put on an education board.  I’ve now delivered the last of the eight neonatal lectures for the 4^th medical students and have continued to do bedside teaching sessions with them.  It is the final week of their paediatric block this week and I’ll help with their clinical exams next week.

I travelled to Addis Ababa last Wednesday for the Ethiopian Pediatric Society Annual Conference and returned to Haramaya on Saturday evening.  It was my first trip back to Addis since arriving and I was quite surprised by how struck I was by all the Caucasian faces at the airport.  The clean flushing toilets (complete with toilet paper) were also quite a novelty!  The conference was held at the Sheraton Hotel which is beautiful.  The opulence felt a long way from my work environment and made me feel a little uneasy.  However, it was really good to understand how paediatrics is being led at a national level and I felt very encouraged by what I saw.  For me, the most inspiring speaker was Dr Dube, a paediatrician from Blantyre, Malawi, who worked with her colleagues to develop a triage system for their incredibly busy paediatric emergency department.  Previously patients had been seen on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis rather than according to clinical need.  Introduction of this system had a significant impact on mortality rates and it has now been implemented across Malawi.  The team have developed a three day ‘Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment’ (ETAT) training programme for health workers which is being rolled out across sub-Saharan Africa.   Dr Dube will deliver ETAT training to paediatricians in Ethiopia this week and hopes that they will disseminate their learning to colleagues across the country.  Dr Dube ended by saying that ‘insanity is doing things the same way and expecting to see different results’ - wise words which are very relevant to my work here.

 

It was really lovely to catch up with several other VSO volunteers in Addis.  In addition to the Addis-based volunteers, I saw some education volunteers who were attending another conference and met three new arrivals (two of whom I knew from a training course in the UK).  I certainly ate (and drank!) far more than I would usually but it was hard not to make the most of the beautiful lunches at the Sheraton and vast choice of restaurants in Addis in the evenings.

Life here on the university campus continues to be good and it was nice that the flat felt like home when I returned on Saturday.  Helen (my flatmate) and I helped at ‘Saturday Club’ at the school on campus last weekend.  The Club was started by a previous VSO volunteer and aims to teach school-aged children life skills and improve their English.  We had a Halloween theme - Helen expertly painted the children’s faces whilst I organised some Halloween-themed games.  Several of the children showed me around the school afterwards – I understand that it is very well-resourced compared to many others but class sizes are still large and access to books seemed limited.  Helen and I have also started twice weekly Amharic lessons with one of the English lecturers at the university.  It would be great to be able to have basic conversations with staff and patients at the hospital, and a little Amharic would probably help secure better prices when negotiating with taxi drivers and in the market! 

It is strange to think that the nights are becoming longer in the UK and that you’ll be celebrating Bonfire Night tonight – can’t say I’m missing the colder weather, the blue skies and warm days here are great!  I’ll be in touch again soon with more news and photographs.