Broken bones in Elgin...

Someone recently asked me ‘how was Sierra Leone’, to which I replied ‘better than Elgin!’ Maybe a reply influenced by a week of long days and not enough sleep!

One of the ‘downsides’ to taking a year out, which I was aware of while organising my OOPE, was losing previously allocated jobs I had in Inverness. Although disappointing, it didn’t put me off (obviously), especially since past experience of working in smaller peripheral hospitals (Oban and Orkney), which I may not have chosen over Inverness, have been so positive. Let’s hope Elgin will be as enjoyable…I start in orthopaedics, then move on to O&G and A&E.

It’s been quite a shock getting back into full time work in an orthopaedic department. I was staggered by the number of junior doctors at our induction/welcome on my first day (maybe around 30, not including doctors already working at the hospital, and not including consultants), compared to one in Kambia, which has a catchment population three times that of Dr Gray’s in Elgin. The systems’ are so incomparable though. In some ways work feels much busier here in Elgin; expectations and pressures are so much higher.

I am working as one of four ‘middle grades’ in orthopaedics, and we cross cover general surgery ‘out of hours’. There are 5 orthopaedic consultants, all of whom are very approachable, and put up with a lot of phone calls and questions whenever I am asked for an ‘orthopaedic opinion’, usually from someone far more senior than me! An advantage of working in smaller hospitals is working closely with consultants, a privilege I have become used to working in North Scotland. We are also needed to assist in theatre, so knowledge of the anatomy of the hip and knee is getting better, and seeing first hand the complications of joint replacement surgery...

Last week was a busy week, travelling down to Stirling on Wednesday for a Practice Based Small Group Learning (PBSGL) facilitator course (which I would definitely recommend, if only for the free food which included a 2 course hot lunch!), back to work in Elgin on Thursday, then over to Inverness for GPST2 induction on Friday. Despite being a lot of travelling, it was really refreshing to have time out of the hospital to see that there is life beyond orthopaedics, and to see how much support there is for trainees from the deanery, and to get an idea of the GP ‘community’ and opportunities for ongoing learning/development after finishing training.

It’s also nice to be ‘taught’ instead of ‘teaching’; although I miss having the time to prepare and plan teaching sessions, and also the time to work on quality improvement projects. Despite being so much more developed there are still so many improvements/interventions that could be made to improve quality of care here, it’s just a challenge to find the time to tackle such projects when you’re working full time. 

And life goes on in Kambia; Hannah and Noemi are continuing the teaching programme, and have recently been joined by a retired GP, and are awaiting the arrival of a paediatric nurse. The next teaching trip is in November, and is focussing on severe malnutrition, and I am trying to produce a ‘malnutrition manual’, to give to all the hospital staff and form the basis of the teaching week. It’s really nice to still feel a bit involved with work out in Sierra Leone.

It’s been a difficult transition moving from a Kambia, where you can really feel like you’re making a real difference, to becoming a small cog in a much bigger system of the NHS. But I’m getting there…and trying to get back into the dreaded e-portfolio…

Back to the UK...

It feels like I've been in another world for the last 6 months. As I walked through Gatwick airport on the escalator floors, caught a train into London (which left at 9.13 on the dot, as scheduled), travelled on the London Underground (trains travelling in tunnels under the city of London!), bought a brie, tomato and basil sandwich, and caught an air conditioned train up to North Wales, with a power socket next to my seat (!!); it really struck me how basic life has been in Sierra Leone.

Four Weeks Left!

This week myself and Kadie, the district nutritionist, ran two one-day training courses for all the paediatric ward staff on assessing and managing acute severe malnutrition. The Kambia Appeal kindly paid for refreshments (a spicy egg roll and tea for breakfast, and a cooked meal of ground nuts and meat the first day and plassas (spicy pounded cassava leaves, a local dish) and rice on the second day. Apparently training events without food will not be well attended! The food went down well and I think everyone enjoyed the training, the feedback was all very positive. It was so good doing the training with Kadie, who could teach in Krio, and also had a much better idea of local ideas and practices. 

The Rains Have Arrived!

The rains have arrived! Initially with some spectacular nighttime storms, but they have gradually extended into the days; it has rained on the past 3 days (not continuously but for quite long stretches). Apparently Sierra Leone is the wettest country in Africa… and since it’s hardly rained in the past 4 months so there must be a lot to come! It’s much cooler when it’s raining. It was pretty unbearable just before it rained, and even after the first few storms, very humid and muggy.

Half Way!

Another few weeks have flown by and I have now passed my half way point in Sierra Leone, despite still feeling like I’ve only just got here!

There is a team of obstetricians and midwives from the UK out this week, delivering teaching and training to the staff at the hospital. Everyone seems to have enjoyed it but it has left the wards pretty devoid of staff, so it’s been a busy week on the wards for those of us trying to keep the wards running! It’s coincided with a busy week on paediatrics, so I’m looking forward to getting away to the beach this weekend!

Mt Bintunami and the Banana Islands

It feels like a long time since I updated my blog. As I get more involved with life here I have less time to sit and write about it! 

We have just had an amazing weeks holiday, we climbed to the highest point between Morocco and Cameroon, Mt Bintunami, in the Loma Mountains, and spent a few days relaxing on the Banana Islands.

Kambia Resources

This weeks blog is in pictorial format to give you an idea of the level of resources here in Kambia.

Kambia Hospital Outpatients and Theatre

Rat Catchers, Training, Diarrhoea And The Twins!

So another few weeks have flown by… another weekend at the beach, and the NRD (Network for Rural Development) training weekend, more paediatrics, and more teaching.

We now have 2 kittens at the base, Simba and Alfie. We kept spying a rat popping its head out of our toilet, which was quite disturbing, so action has been taken! We have been told that we should stop feeding them now, and ‘let the battle begin!’ 

Paediatrics, Kambia Style!

I have just got home from the hospital and the generator is on so it seems like a good time to write another blog entry – such a luxury to have the fan on! I got a lift back with Peter, who used to live at the base, and now rides an akada around Kambia. (The akada’s are the main way of getting from A to B here – small motorbike’s with cushions on the back for 1 or 2 passengers to sit on. Quite fun as long as you don’t think too much about how dangerous it is!)

First Week in Kambia

I have now been in Kambia just over a week! Thanks to my new phone and 3g internet connection is better than I was expecting so hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with the blog!

I’ve had a really warm welcome by everyone at the Kambia Appeal Base - a collection of huts and houses, surrounded by a straw fence, which is my home while I’m here. We share the base with Moses, the appeal co-ordinator, a couple of other families who also work for the appeal (+Bionce and her 3 puppies!). I have my own hut, and we use a big central house with a nice veranda to sit on, and a toukel - a round open sided thatched roofed building that is the main outdoor living space.

Before I Go..

I am heading out to Sierra Leone tomorrow, to work at Kambia Government Hosptial for 6 months.

This is part of my ‘Out of Programme Experience’ (OOPE) from GP training in the Scottish Highlands, which I have taken between ST1 and ST2. The deanery was very supportive of my decision to take and OOPE, which made the process very easy.



My OOPE began with the Diploma in Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, a fantastic course that I would thoroughly recommend to anyone planning to work in a tropical setting. It was on the course that I heard about the Kambia Appeal, who are running a long term volunteer programme at Kambia Hospital. Here is a link to their website which has lots of information about the project, the hospital and health services in Kambia.



http://www.kambia.org.uk/volunteer/programme

Lorraine, a nurse practitioner and friend from Inverness, will be joining me in about a weeks time, and Hannah, a recently qualified GP from Cumbria (and one of my good friends sisters!) is coming out in March. I will be joining Mary, a colleague from the DTM&H course, who has just finished her foundation training, and Grace, who I did an International Health BSc with in Leeds 6 years ago!

I have just come back from a training weekend, which was very informative, and has given us a much better idea of what to expect in Kambia, what is expected of us, and introduced us to some tools to help us achieve this. We were also given USB sticks full of useful resources (internet access is very limited so we won't be able to google anything!).

The aim of the volunteer programme is to improve health outcomes and quality of healthcare delivery within Kambia District by empowering UK health volunteers through skill sharing to train and teach local healthcare workers, develop quality improvement tools, and provide clinical support. We will be working in the wards alongside local staff and running teaching sessions to the volunteer nursing aides, local unpaid and untrained volunteers who make up a large proportion of the hospital staff. Previous volunteers have written a teaching module which we will deliver, whilst writing the next module for the next volunteers to teach. We will also hope to explore some of the issues we may encounter, and hope to use some of the quality improvement skills learnt on the diploma and at the training weekend, to work with local staff to develop sustainable improvements to healthcare delivery at the hospital. 

Sierra Leone is ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world; around 1 in 5 children die before they are 5 years old, 1 in 11 women die as a result of pregnancy, life expectancy is 47.8 years, resources are very limited, much of the infrastructure was destroyed by the civil war (1992-2002) and patients have to pay upfront for their care, and may not be able to afford life saving treatment. It will be a very challenging 6 months, but I am sure it will be a very enriching and rewarding experience.

I am also really looking forward to exploring what looks like a really beautiful country, with stunning beaches and some of West Africa’s highest mountains.

I hope to keep this blog going while I am away, but I have been warned that I will have very limited access to internet, so it may not be very regular.

If you would like to write to me I would love to hear from you. Please send letters (but not parcels, apparently they do not arrive!) to Dr Zoe Anderson, Kambia Government Hopstial, Kambia, Sierra Leone, West Africa.

This is the base I will be living in, with perfectly positioned trees for a slack line!

 

 

Lonely planet says:

Sierra Leone has largely stayed out of the news lately, which, considering how it earned most of its press in the 1990s, is a good thing. The decade-long civil war garnered regular headlines thanks to widespread atrocities committed by rebel soldiers, many of them not yet in their teens.

But oh how things have changed. Peace was declared in 2002 and it has blossomed. Life has largely returned to normal and today Sierra Leone is one of West Africa’s safest destinations. Reconstruction continues apace, investors are arriving in droves and travellers are trickling in. The one recent event that did make headlines was a free and fair election.
 
With some of the most perfect palm-lined sands on the continent, it won’t be long before Sierra Leone takes its place in Europe’s packaged-beach-holiday scene, but for now visitors can have the surf outside the capital pretty much to themselves. Travel to the provinces,where roads are often abysmal and facilities usually basic (but getting better), remains in the realm of the adventurous, but with cheerful people and wonderful parks, the rewards are many.