Mary in Malawi

So extremely nice to meet Nyathipa and Bertha again, in their right element!!!! =D They are so happy now being back home.. I can only imagine!! While looking at them and how happy they are to be back home with thheir family and friends, I get really homesick... But I'll be back home in the middle of december!! =D Just for a little while, but anyway... It will be very very very very nice!! =D

Also, for the last two days i have been writing a report on what we have done sp far in the project. It ended up with 10 pages!! Crazy.... It is stuck in my spine how to make reports now, I even made abstract and all that shit... Just like when doing a report for school,  like the bachelor! god, it took ages! And now... Poof! A report! Wohoo!! It was actually nice to do something else than working, so I am not complaining. But so nice to know that it is not going to be judged, as in school.... =) Hihi.

And I have made a small summary text and some pictures for the Nkhoma hospital homepage... It will look somehow like this: 

Norweigian emergency care project

We are two nurses from Norway. My name is Maria Svensson, and my colleague's' name in Linn-Kristin Hatlebrekke. We where chosen to go to Nkhoma Hospital, Malawi, to introduce and improve emergency care. This project is a cooperation between three parties, a) Nkhoma hospital, Malawi, b) Our hospital, Haraldsplass Deaconal hospital, Norway and c) ”FK”, fredskorpset, i.e the norweigian peace core. This project is an exchange programme between the two hospitals with two participants from each hospital going to the other, and it is sponsored economically by the FK.

The length of this project is one year, from may 2010 to may 2011.

 

The aim from FK is as follows:

 

"Improved quality of emergency care 2010"

1. Lead Partner: Haraldsplass Deconal Hospital

2. Countries: Malawi, Norway

3. Status: Active project

 

""The aim of the project is to improve the emergency care and to establish two emergency units at Nkhoma Hospital; one for adults and one for children. In addition the project is aiming at improving the quality of the high risk care provided in the maternity, surgical and general wards, and in this way reduce mortality among critically ill patients, mothers giving birth and children being born. The project should also promote internationalisation of Haraldsplass Deaconal Hospital.

// Fredskorpset, Postboks 8055 Dep, 0031""

What have we done so far?

• We have introduced and established an easy and understandable triage system, using colour tags. Red for emergency, Yellow for priority and Green for queue. Before we came, the patients where assorted after what time they came to the hospital, which resulted in a lot of unnecessary deaths in line outside the hospital.

• We have trained patient attendants, nurses, medical assistants, security guards and ward attendents in recognizing severely sick patients, and we have explained the new triage system to everyone at the hospital.

• We have made protocols over how to do the triage, and put them up on visible places around OPD.

• We have planned the renovation and furnituring of an emergency room for children in OPD. The room is now finished and we will start using it this week.

• The area outside OPD is going through a lot of changes. Our intention is to build a floor, a roof and benches outside OPD before the rainy season starts. The benches will be painted in red, yellow and green, and the patients will be informed to sit on the bench that matches the colour tag in their passport.

• We had a problem with patients not understanding what the colour tags where for, and this caused some confusion outside OPD when suddenly some pateints were brought forward in line (red patients), and the others not understanding why. But we have with help from our chichewa-speaking colleags solved this problem by a) every day explaining to the line of people what the colour tags mean, b) bringing the information about the triage system to the villages, using the deacons in the churches and the staff working in the clinics and health centers.

 

Things are going very well with the project. Before we started the triage, several patiens, babies in particular, died in line outside. Since we started the triage, no one has died in line. Every staff member in OPD have been working very hard, and everyone is doing their best. Every nurse, clinician and patient attendent in OPD have had a role to play in this project, and we are very thankful for all the support and help we have gotten from our fellow colleagues down here. Me and Linn-Kristin have now five months left here in Nkhoma, and we intend to keep improving the emergency care, and to make it strong from the very foundation so that it will be kept up even when we leave in april 2011.

NB; We would love to show some statistics over our progress here, but unfortunately there where no statistics from before, and we have not yet managed to get a system working for making statistics. We are now hoping to get a column in the computerized registration system, where we can document what triage colour the patient had when coming in to the hospital and in that way create statistics.

Many thanks!

Maria Svensson,

reg. nurse.