Week 4: Zimba and Chikankata

Starting week 4 off on Monday, I left with 7 other girls at around 7:00 am to travel to Zimba Mission Hospital where we would be spending two days. Monday I volunteered to spend the day in the Maternity and Peds Wards, hoping that i would be able to see a birth. The group last week i think was able to see one or two births while they were at Zimba. However, there were no births and no women even in the Maternity Ward waiting to deliver. So i spent the day with Marianna in Peds. (Marianna has been my partner each time we've gone to Zimba because the 8 of us split into 4 pairs and then work in different areas each week.) So in the morning when we first arrived, our whole group had a tour of the hospital and of the different areas where we would be getting to work and observe. Around 9:30 Marianna and I started in Peds with the nurse that was working that day. She was doing her meds at 10 so we got to help pass out the tablets and we drew up one injection each to give to two children. After meds at 10 Marianna and I looked at some of the charts for the children and talked with the nurse a little bit about how long she has worked there and what types of things she has seen in her time as a nurse. The rest of the time Marianna and I just stayed pretty much in the ward talking with the children and checking on them. There were several babies who were sick with pneumonia and one girl who had burns all over her legs. At 1 we went back up to the guest house where we would be staying and had lunch. Then we had some time before we were to go back to to hospital at 2 so i took a short nap. The rooms in the guest house each had an air conditioning unit! so that made it very nice and cool in the rooms. At 2 Marianna and i went back to the peds unit and just hung out with the kids and talked to some of the mothers who were there to care for their child. At 4 we helped the nurse pass meds again and then around 4:30 we ended for the day and went back to the guest house to relax before dinner. Dinner was at 6 and we had some really good chicken. During dinner we had started a conversation about experiences with broken bones and other medical things so that continued after dinner too. Then we all shared what we would want our last meal to be. We talked about some other stuff for quite a while and then we all went to bed around 11 i think. Marianna and I were on call that night in case there were any births at the hospital they were to call us and we could go down to watch. I slept with the phone but there were no calls. :(

Tuesday we got up and had breakfast at the guest house and then were down to the hospital around 8. Marianna and I spent all morning in the Maternal Health Clinic. It was similar to the clinic we went to at Siachetema where we sat in on an antenatal clinic for the pregnant woman. At this meeting however, there were special guests from Lusaka who came to talk with the mothers and fathers who came to the meeting. They were from the Mothers 2 Mothers Program which is a program that seeks to help mothers prevent transmitting HIV to their babies. The room for the meeting was not all that big and in no time it was packed with women who had come to learn. Marianna and I were on the side of the room and we sat there for probably an hour or so before they meeting actually started. I believe it went for at least 2 hours. And it was all in Tonga except for a few things that some of the people from Lusaka were unsure how to communicate in Tonga so they would say a little in English and the women that worked at Zimba would interrupt into Tonga for the women and men present. So it was long time to sit there. But it was interesting. After the teaching was finished, the staff started the assessments on the women. Marianna took blood pressures and I got all of their current weights and recorded them in their books. Then i helped one of the nurses with counting out pills for the women that they would get after being assessed by the midwife. The pills were an iron supplement and folic acid. After counting pills for a little bit I asked the nurse midwife if Marianna and I could come in and watch her as she did the assessments. She was very willing to let us come in and learn. She let us watch as she did one assessment and talked us through it and then the next few that she had she let Marianna and I do. I felt like i learned a lot and the midwife was so helpful and willing to answer all of our questions. So it was nice to be able to do something after sitting in the meeting part for so long. We went back up for lunch with the other girls and then at 2 when we came back to the hospital, Marianna and i went to spend some time in the lab. Some of the other girls had gotten to do blood draws and blood smears for malaria but there was not much going on then. So i copied down numbers in a book after running complete blood counts of different vials of blood and just talked with the lab technicians. We left around 4 to come back to Choma so that we would be sure to get back for dinner.

Wednesday morning the other 8 went to Choma General Hospital to help with the pediatric anti-retroviral clinic and the 8 of us who stayed at the guest house either did homework or helped some of the WHIZ staff with data entry. I went over and helped Ms. Peggy with data entry for 3 hours until lunch time. Then after lunch our whole team left to go to Chikankata where we would spend a few days observing in the hospital there. It was a long drive to get there and it was after dark when we did arrive. I think it was around 7:30 when we got there. We got our stuff into our rooms and then we had dinner around 8. I shared a room with Janna. The beds were nice and pretty comfortable. It was kind of strange sleeping there but i did get some good rest.

Thursday and Friday we spent at the hospital moving between different wards. On Thursday i was in the Maternity Ward with Alyssa and Alissa. i was hoping again to see a birth. There were several women who were there waiting to give birth but the nurses said some of them it would be a couple days at least. We all took a tour in the morning of the hospital and when we went to the maternity ward there was a woman in labor. But when Alyssa, Alissa and i got back there we found she had had her baby a half hour ago :(. So we hung out with the nurses there and we got to see the delivery room and the ward. The nurse that showed us around was very helpful and answered all of our questions. The hospital also has a special room called the Prem Unit. It would be probably the closest thing to a NICU here. They had three incubators and 5 premies there at the moment. One had gained enough weight that he did not need to be in the incubator and there was one set of twins that shared an incubator. Seeing that room for the premature babies and watching the nurses give the feedings through the NG tubes was one of my favorite things of my time at Chikankata. To save some length i'm going to do some summarizing of the rest of the time there. Basically i waited around all day to see a birth and missed another one by mins when i went down to get lunch. Then after dinner i went back up with 4 other girls and we waited for 2 or 3 hours for a woman who was in labor but she never advanced far enough while we were there and we could not stay there any later. We did see one baby who had stopped breathing be resuscitated by the nurses. We found out later the next morning that that same baby had not made it through the night. That was hard for me to realize that i had been there and i felt like if i had just been there and checked on the baby more often it might have lived. But my experience just from that one day and couple hours at night in the Prem Unit really helped me to see that God has placed premies and their families on my heart and that i want to be there to help care for them. Which i had thought before i wanted to work in a NICU but i had never really had any experience and to be in that unit with those babies just felt right. So i'm interested to see where God takes me and what he has planned for me after i graduate!

So that was that and then on Friday i spent half the morning in the ICU and the other half i was in the outpatient department with one of the doctors just observing her as she saw patients. She was really good about talking with me in English and explaining what was going with each patient. We left after lunch around 2 to come back to Choma. We got back and had dinner here in Choma and then had a free evening to relax. Saturday we had a guest speaker come and talk with us from 9-11 and then had free time the rest of the day to do homework. And then Sunday was Church.

My pictures this week are all from Chikankata and i don't really have a whole lot but i'll share what i have!

Week 4 Photos