arrival

Sorry this is late to upload- Internet has been down for a few days.


So we made it to Malawi, only losing one bag on the way. Luckily for Lish and I, it was nothing we needed personally. Unluckily for the hospital, it contained surgical gloves that are desperately needed here due to great difficulty getting them to the country.

Mulanje is beautiful. We have an awesome view of the mountain (Mt Mulanje- 3000m high)- you can see waterfalls cascading down a sheer face. We share a house with another Aussie medical student from the university of Melbourne and a nursing student from the UK. The house is pretty nice- and we have a night watchmen (who mainly sleeps and reads his bible outside our front door from 6.30pm to 4.30am) and a lady (ironically) called Martha who comes everyday and does dishes, washing and cleaning!

The hospital is fairly well equipped with X-ray & ultrasound, a lab, a theatre, male & female wards, paeds & neonatal wards and a maternity wing. However, drugs and other essential supplies run out. Each week the medical director does not know if there will be enough HIV drugs to get through the week. Malawi has one of the highest HIV rates in Africa, and the Mulanje district has the highest rate in Malawi with around 22% of people affected. 5000 people receive HIV treatment at the hospital.

There is only one doctor at the hospital, who is the director, and does mostly administration and public health. The hospital is run by clinical officers who are practically trained in Malawi and do everything from diagnostics to performing caesarean sections and other surgical procedures. 

This week I am concentrating on primary health care. Each day I  have been going out on outreach clinics to nearby villages. The similarities between outreach here and outreach clinics in Derby are amazing, but they are also very different. Driving into each clinic there were at least one hundred women and children waiting to be seen. They run under 5s clinics, antenatal clinic and family planning clinics. Antenatal clinic is pretty much the same as in Australia, except there is no Doppler (so we use the Pinnard's stethoscope) and there is no dipsticking of urine. In family planning women are given depo provera injections (contraception for 3 months). There is a major condom shortage here- which is bad for contraception and bad for HIV. Under 5's clinic is screening and immunisations. Kids get diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hep b, hib, pneumococcal, measles and bcg vaccinations. I am very impressed with these primary health clinics and I spent today jabbing child after child. Sadly, today we noted that lots of kids were underweight. One of the guys from the hospital explained to me that January is hungry season as the maize (Malawi's staple food) is not ready for another 3-4 months. 

I am becoming vegetarian for the next 6 weeks as meat is hard to come by and when you do see it, it looks a bit questionable. We are brainstorming ideas on creative ways to cook pumpkin, onion and tomatoes. Mangoes and pineapples are in season so also take up a large portion of our diet.

Internet is super super slow and unreliable here- so emails/Facebook/blogging will be intermittent. Power outages are also common place. 

I'm really enjoying myself here so far, so I'll try keep you posted as much as I can!

Love cy