Kitgum Town

Kitgum Town
Kitgum Town

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

We have POWER !

Our team has settled in to work here in Kitgum. We are staying in a small guest house on the hospital compound at St Josephs Hospital Kitgum. Everyone here is very welcoming and we have all we need. Our days start at 7 am with breakfast and we share a devotional from John Pipers book, "A Godward life ". This has been a great start for us. Ward rounds start at 8am. We are spending our time working with Dr Charles and his clinical officer and nurse assistants on the childrens ward. It takes us all morning to move around together assessing the 80 patients currently in the ward with conditions like malaria, HIV Aids, TB, Gastroenteritis and Pneumonia.  WE are all doing our best to also learn some Acholi language-- greetings and history taking sentences, much to the amusement of our listeners.
The health system here is in major trouble with cost cuts, poor morale and corruption making it very hard for the health professionals working at the coal face. Every day is a struggle for them.
In the afternoons we have been going to Bregma Primary health care clinic and working alongside dr Vincent and his team. Also we have had some time to visit another project here called  tendertrust run by Lois Ford from NZ who cares for about 100 orphans, many of who have major disabilities.  Its very impacting. Also our visits to the homes of some of our health workers has been a major highlight. More information to follow. Bedtime approaches and i need to get under my mosquito net away from these little malaria bearing mosquitos buzzing about me. We were all very excited tonight when the power came on after several days of blackouts. We rushed aorund and plugged in all our appliances to get charged up! The water heated up and we had hot showers!
YOTKOM UGANDA DRUG SHOP HAS OPENED.
Justin administrator. Sheila Nurse with Andrew and Dr Vincent