Trip to Tanzania

Touring the hospital was like stepping back in time. The equipment they have and the facilities are so old. To be honest I really don’t know how to put into words the state of the hospital. I don’t think I will ever be able to express the feelings and put across just what it was like touring the hospital. The emotions you go through, the horror of imagining being treated there, the shock of the lack of everything, I guess you can never understand fully until you are standing there in person and seeing it with your own eyes, and even then it is hard to believe. We started at the beginning, I was shown where the files were kept and if you see the filing system then you wouldn’t be surprised that many files get lost (making treatment hard when you don’t know their medical history). The filing system is literally lots of sheets of paper crammed into wooden slotted shelves – not ideal. I was shown one of the files, where the man’s occupation was peasant, and it turns out this is the case for the majority of the people that come in, they are just known as a peasant. The majority have no record of when they were born so for date of birth it is simply marked as adult. It is so sad to see that people have no record of who they are. The notes are not in a proper order and on top of that such a small amount of information is actually noted down (this has been difficult for the European doctors that are volunteering and they have found it highly frustrating – it is one of the many things they are trying to teach and get the medical staff to do as knowing as much information as possible about symptoms, diagnosis and treatments is highly important). I was then shown the patients first point of contact which is a little desk set up outside with a weighing scale, blood pressure kit and they note down these things at first contact. The women sitting there doing this exchanged a few words with me and were a little embarrassed but chuffed when I asked if I could take their photo. They were so pleased when I showed them their picture on my camera.