15/12/11 - Long days, but still exciting!

Beautiful sky in Lilongwe

Lucia Day (is it like that in English?) and my grandmothers birthday was on Tuesday. Different things to celebrate, but I was home from work, sleeping most of the day, cause I was sick. Had an infection, started Monday morning, I was early to identify it, left work after lunch, treatment started early as well, so already felt the effect next morning. But I was still knocked out, had fever on Monday, so I stayed home Tuesday.

Work is still challenging, but getting more and more into things, so every day is a bit more easier. The roster is a pain in the ass to write, but I guess it is also something that comes after some time.

The challenge I see as the most difficult one, is the bad work ethics and morale some of the people I work with have. I have seen that some of the nurses, especially the youngest ones, are sometimes lazy at work, but the worst part is that they don’t show up to work on time. The shifts here are ST – Straight shift, from 7.30am to 4pm, and N – Night shift, from 4pm to 7.30am. So the part that they are lazy, somehow feels wrong to say, cause one of the nurses last week worked from Tuesday afternoon, 4pm, and constantly till Thursday afternoon, 4pm. Because there are so few nurses and no one to cover all the shifts, they work their asses off! But that doesn’t mean you can show up two hrs late for your shift. On Friday I couldn’t leave until almost 6pm, cause no one had shown up. And then there was supposed to be two nurses coming, both came too late. One thing is if it is agreed upfront, but just not to show up, not answering the phone, I told them, this is not acceptable, and disrespect of me and my time. But they always have excuses, transport, visitors, what what, and doesn’t seem to care. So if this is something that won't change, I have to talk to the Matron, cause I am not interested in working my ass off just because other people don’t want to come on time. I'll keep you posted!

Malaria prophylaxis sign

Last weekend was mostly relaxing, on Saturday Tone and I went out to buy a TV and a home theatre system. So now we have a TV, but no channels yet. I think we will fix it this week. It is not the biggest bouquet we are getting, but just the to have the possibility to watch some news on BBC and CNN. That will be nice!

The project that Tone is on from Norway is paying for all of this, so it is nothing that I take from my money that I raised... Don’t worry! I don’t misuse.

Saturday I went out with some friends, but we didn’t stay for long, came home around 1.30am.

Sunday: Lazy day. Treated my body with some peeling and other beauty products, felt nice.

Yesterday my good friend Tuta arrived in Norway. He is Malawian, and he is going to work at Finse 1222 with Merete. It is so strange, the thought of him being there in the freeze ass cold, and as far as I have heard, he is having a bit of a hard time. But I guess it is an adjustment, he will hopefully get used to it soon! And then Mike, my other very good friend here, is leaving, for the same purpose, just after Christmas. It will be sad to miss them!

The day at work today was chaotic! Not that it was too busy, I guess it could have been, if it wasn’t in Malawi. We had a good theatre list with six or seven patients, mostly hysterectomies, but also some elective cesarean sections. We started with the two c/s, and finished around eleven (cause of course, we didn’t start until ten). Then there was some hysterectomies planned, but there was an emergency coming, so we waited. The anesthetist went to the ward to review the patient, and she never came back. When we called for her, after 40 minutes, the situation was that there wasn’t only one emergency there, but four! So that’s why she took long. And at twelve, 20 minutes later, she was supposed to knock off, so she didn’t want to start with any procedure. So we waited for the other anesthetist to be free, and when he was, we couldn’t get hold of the patient from the ward, cause they never picked up the phone there. And when we finally got them, and the patient arrived, we couldn’t get hold of the surgeons. And when both surgeons finally came (of course we couldn’t get them both at the same time), it was 1.30pm, we hadn’t done anything for the last two and a half hours, because of the “emergencies” all the other six elective surgeries was canceled... TIA! This Is Africa! I finally knocked off something to five, cause I had scrubbed and couldn’t just leave at 4pm, and of course, no one else had come for night shift yet... Sigh!

Yes, this is a part of colon...