My first month has been great overall in Zimbabwe. Decided for this entry to give you my typical day and some of our projects:
Awake: 6:45am
Bike (what did you expect?) to office along partially paved roads under canopy of jacaranda trees to send e-mails before clinic work begins: 7:30am
Leave office for the clinic: 8:10 am
The staff congregates at the office- from which the five MSF vehicles get loaded up and scheduled departures to the clinics and other sites around the city to do the trainings and meet with local partner organizations.
NUST* Hospital: rounds on the patients with one of the med school's 3 pediatricians- if one is actually there. If not, I consult with the junior doctors on their pediatric 4month rotation on a few of the complicated ones. Occasionally give lectures on peds topics- 8:30-11am
Mpilo* Clinic: [img 150, those 2 are my co-docs] with children sitting in patient mother's laps on benches that go on for hundreds of feet alongside all the corridors. This is my main hub for the year. 3,500 children with HIV or suspected (definitive diagnosis is difficult in 1st year of life). The former MSF pediatrician, Sarah, finishes her clinic work next week. She's sticking around to do research on virological, immunological failure of HIV treatment for 2 months before she heads back to Ireland. More patient stories in future installments- 12-4pm
HF Radio request on our personal 2-way radio for a MSF vehicle to pick us up when work is completed. Fun to start learning to speak in radio code! "Bravo, this is Yousef requesting transport back to base at 16 hundred 30. Over" When I bike home, before arriving to the security gate of our place, "Romeo 1, Romeo 1 this is Zulu Yellow approaching. Permission to enter. Over" -6pm
Bike home for dinner 6-7pm
Overview: Bulawayo [Bull-uh-why-o] MSF 5-6 different projects, each with a few sites they visit. A total of 68 employees, 64 are Zimbabwean locals. Foreigners are 3 doctors (Tanzanian, Irish and me) and our Indian project coordinator with his wife and adorable 7mo old baby, Adi.
The rate of HIV in one of the local clinics for pregnant woman was 21%. Placing it among the highest in the world.
MSF has lots of outreach projects in the community. For example... An HIV sensitization training this week for principals so that students can be allowed to take their HIV meds on time, have confidentiality and they understand the challenges they face at school. This was done by 2 of the counselors. We have 5 professional and 3 'peer counselors' which are people living with HIV that are there to empower moms and answer the questions about day to day life with an HIV exposed child.
The counselors spend half their time counseling- moms w/ babies exposed to HIV, teenagers having hard time staying on their meds and orphans who've lost both parents to HIV and are shuttled from one home to another. The other half of their time is educating the community.
Another program is PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission). Empowering moms to do all they can to prevent the disease to be passed on. Requires training not just nurses and doctors- but midwives, local shamans and witch doctors to be on board as they attend most of the rural deliveries.
This full service, long-term care (which makes real difference in people's lives) is only a small facet of MSF globally, but a growing one. As donations increase, a push is being made to do more than just emergency care- though that will always be priority #1.
Weekends: There's a large NGO community, so we've been socializing with WorldVision, ICRC (Int'l Comm of the Red Cross) and a few other smaller ones from Europe. More on our socializing in the future.
Went to my first African national park- Matopos. A great first foray into the wild. I climbed onto boulders alongside a waterfall and heard loud noises behind me and saw a rush of a dozen baboons scurrying across the rocks into the trees. Ancient cave paintings- thought to be up to 10,000 years old throughout this massive granite park. Saw a brown hyena on side of the road- likely road kill :( Also a jackal, multiple Kudu (looks like antelope/deer) crossing our land rover's path.
More next month!
*NUST = National University of Science & Technology
*MPILO = 'life' in Ndebele, the regional language which is similar to Zulu. Has clicks like swahili. Fun to listen to!
Awake: 6:45am
Bike (what did you expect?) to office along partially paved roads under canopy of jacaranda trees to send e-mails before clinic work begins: 7:30am
Leave office for the clinic: 8:10 am
The staff congregates at the office- from which the five MSF vehicles get loaded up and scheduled departures to the clinics and other sites around the city to do the trainings and meet with local partner organizations.
NUST* Hospital: rounds on the patients with one of the med school's 3 pediatricians- if one is actually there. If not, I consult with the junior doctors on their pediatric 4month rotation on a few of the complicated ones. Occasionally give lectures on peds topics- 8:30-11am
Mpilo* Clinic: [img 150, those 2 are my co-docs] with children sitting in patient mother's laps on benches that go on for hundreds of feet alongside all the corridors. This is my main hub for the year. 3,500 children with HIV or suspected (definitive diagnosis is difficult in 1st year of life). The former MSF pediatrician, Sarah, finishes her clinic work next week. She's sticking around to do research on virological, immunological failure of HIV treatment for 2 months before she heads back to Ireland. More patient stories in future installments- 12-4pm
HF Radio request on our personal 2-way radio for a MSF vehicle to pick us up when work is completed. Fun to start learning to speak in radio code! "Bravo, this is Yousef requesting transport back to base at 16 hundred 30. Over" When I bike home, before arriving to the security gate of our place, "Romeo 1, Romeo 1 this is Zulu Yellow approaching. Permission to enter. Over" -6pm
Bike home for dinner 6-7pm
Overview: Bulawayo [Bull-uh-why-o] MSF 5-6 different projects, each with a few sites they visit. A total of 68 employees, 64 are Zimbabwean locals. Foreigners are 3 doctors (Tanzanian, Irish and me) and our Indian project coordinator with his wife and adorable 7mo old baby, Adi.
The rate of HIV in one of the local clinics for pregnant woman was 21%. Placing it among the highest in the world.
MSF has lots of outreach projects in the community. For example... An HIV sensitization training this week for principals so that students can be allowed to take their HIV meds on time, have confidentiality and they understand the challenges they face at school. This was done by 2 of the counselors. We have 5 professional and 3 'peer counselors' which are people living with HIV that are there to empower moms and answer the questions about day to day life with an HIV exposed child.
The counselors spend half their time counseling- moms w/ babies exposed to HIV, teenagers having hard time staying on their meds and orphans who've lost both parents to HIV and are shuttled from one home to another. The other half of their time is educating the community.
Another program is PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission). Empowering moms to do all they can to prevent the disease to be passed on. Requires training not just nurses and doctors- but midwives, local shamans and witch doctors to be on board as they attend most of the rural deliveries.
This full service, long-term care (which makes real difference in people's lives) is only a small facet of MSF globally, but a growing one. As donations increase, a push is being made to do more than just emergency care- though that will always be priority #1.
Weekends: There's a large NGO community, so we've been socializing with WorldVision, ICRC (Int'l Comm of the Red Cross) and a few other smaller ones from Europe. More on our socializing in the future.
Went to my first African national park- Matopos. A great first foray into the wild. I climbed onto boulders alongside a waterfall and heard loud noises behind me and saw a rush of a dozen baboons scurrying across the rocks into the trees. Ancient cave paintings- thought to be up to 10,000 years old throughout this massive granite park. Saw a brown hyena on side of the road- likely road kill :( Also a jackal, multiple Kudu (looks like antelope/deer) crossing our land rover's path.
More next month!
*NUST = National University of Science & Technology
*MPILO = 'life' in Ndebele, the regional language which is similar to Zulu. Has clicks like swahili. Fun to listen to!
