Shaking our ''sitting facilities'' to Jinja

We are finally finished in Kampala. We did our 4th half day in Mulago hospital today. Only Sarah caught a baby today. Another group of Ugandan students caught a dead baby with a mouth full of teeth and a brain but no skull to cover it (anencephaly)...One woman has been waiting for 3 days to go to the operating room to get a vaginal tear sutured- it was too deep to do on the ward. She had no food- Alix gave her a granola bar and Angela (one of our instructors) bought some formula for her baby since she had no milk... Oh and yesterday a breech baby's head got stuck and it died.

Alix went in the operating room for 4 ceseareans in case any babies needed resuscitation. Cathy and Lyanne had noticed that one mom was bleeding more than she should have been prior to delivery and suspected a low lying placenta. They had pointed her out to the doctor and it was a good thing- that mom went straight to c-section and sure enough the placenta had been low lying. The baby needed only 4 puffs of air but was well enough to go to postpartum with mom. The second woman had been diagnosed as postdates, breech with polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid)- turns out the baby was head down, large and stillborn. It smelled worse than anything Alix had ever smelled even though it was dead less than 24 hours- it was covered in tiny blisters and Alix wondered if it had died from syphillis. The third baby came out screaming and robust. The fourth baby was supposedly coming face first and labour was therefore obstructed, but when the doctor pulled it out it was actually breech. They thought it was term but really it was only about 34 weeks and needed 4 min of resuscitation.

Needless to say we are not sad to be leaving. Though on a positive note, the Ugandan students at this hospital have been great to work with. Keen to learn, aware of what they don't know, and friendly, working alongside them was a positive experience. Carolyn today enjoyed mentoring one of the students who completed her first birth and another who wanted to learn how to use the partogram.

Last night we took our instructors out for dinner to a great Indian restaraunt and then we went to see a wonderful performance of traditional music and dance. We were so glad to finally get to hear some live music- it's a shame that there isn't more of the marvelous local drumming to be had. At the end we got up and shook our booties (or as the emcee put it our "sitting facilities") on stage with the dancers. Tonight the instructors took us out for dinner at the Indian place. They leave for Entebbe tonight and fly out tomorrow. We will miss their support, guidance and company greatly.

Tomorrow we will be heading back to the amazing resort on Lake Victoria in Jinga, source of the Nile, to spend Canada Day together drinking banana gin by the pool and eating delicious 'Ryan's chips' with avocado- these are fries smothered in some ketchup/chili sauce mixture with red onion and green pepper. Yum!  We have a Canadian flag t-shirt and tie that we were planning on giving away but perhaps we'll wear them with our swimsuits first. It will probably be our most patriotic Canada Day ever.


Lyanne delivering a placenta




Us with the inspiring Dr. Mirembe, renowned Uganda researcher of maternal mortality and champion of midwives.