Last weekend, Vani and I joined the visiting medical students on an expedition to Semonkong, “Place of Smoke.” After nearly 6 hours of driving (much of it traveling at snail’s pace along bumpy, unpaved gravel), we finally arrived at our destination. The scenery was breathtaking; vast expanses of rolling hills painted with soft pastels. We rode ponies all day (my first time—it was great!) and hiked down to the bottom of a roaring 200-meter waterfall, which is apparently the tallest abseiling site in the world. Pictures below:
Last Friday, we demonstrated the dosing syringe clips and adherence charts in the Maluti Wellness Center. They felt that the syringe clips had potential to help patients take the right amount of medication, but unfortunately our clips did not quite fit their syringes, which came in 2.5 mL and 10 mL. We will return the following week for feedback on the charts. On Monday, we demonstrated the oxygen concentration sensor in the Labor Ward, and left the device to get feedback later. We also met with the hospital’s resident engineer to talk about potential collaborative projects. He was very friendly and shared his ideas with us. We will meet with him later this week to go over plans.
On Tuesday, we fixed a blood pressure cuff in the male ward by cleaning out the valve. We also demonstrated the pediatric transilluminators in the pediatric ward, and demonstrated the phototherapy lights in the pediatric and obstetric wards. They do not currently have pediatric transilluminators, and only one set of phototherapy lights is available in obstetrics. The lights, however, are white and not the blue color that is necessary to effectively treat neonatal jaundice.
On Wednesday, we went to the maintenance shop to build frames to hold up the phototherapy lights over the infant cribs. After taking the necessary measurements and dimensions, we followed the maintenance worker into the Maluti junkyard. It was littered with heaps of broken or unwanted medical equipment, including centrifuges, wheel chairs, cribs, pipes, and a fridge or two, among other miscellanea. We will definitely revisit the place to see if we can find anything interesting or potentially fixable. We found several promising pieces of material to create, hopefully, three solid frames. We helped clean up the material, and the maintenance worker skillfully welded the pieces of metal together in the correct shape. We will return tomorrow to finish the work and maybe give it a nice paintjob. Later that day, we also managed to “fix” a broken pulse oximeter. Actually, when we took it back to our house to work on it, we found that it functioned perfectly well. Confused, we took it back to the hospital and asked the nurses to clarify what exactly was wrong with it. No one could tell us. Vani asked if she should leave it out so that it could be used, but the nurse said they should put it back in the closet… the same closet where it had been gathering dust for who knows how long under the pretense of a “broken” device. I hope that it will start being used.
In other news, I became a bit ill at the end of last weekend, but presently I seem to have nearly recovered. I felt guilty in indulging in self-pity in the midst of so much greater suffering at the hospital, but to be honest, it was quite awful. At any rate, I’m very thankful for the return of good health, and I hopeful it’ll remain for the rest of my time here, for there’s still much work to be done. More news to follow soon! Thanks for reading!