I am in Kigali to witness with my own eyes exactly how surgery is performed in a foreign country. One of our mentors, Operation Open Heart from Australia, is performing pediatric surgeries.
After two full days of travel with some long layovers, I arrived at 0200 with no ride to the Top Tower Hotel. My seat-mate and his wife were nice enough to "drop" me at my destination. After a quick rest, having no formal means of communication (no MTN phone and my own cell phone "locked"), I was forced to locate the Australians the "old fashioned" way - on foot. I familiarized myself with Kigali as I tried to locate King Faisal Hospital. However, after seeing most of the town and still unable to locate the hospital, I broke down, donned my own green helmet and climbed aboard a "taxi-moto." These are mopeds driven by green uniformed and green helmeted Rwandans, zipping in and around larger vehicles without a care in the world for any concept of traffic rules. Only later did I find out that travel insurance will not cover any untoward events that may occur while hanging on for dear life.
I finally found a member of the Australian team, Alison, who was more than welcoming, showed me around the CICU, updated me on their plan for the next two weeks and introduced me to several of the King Faisal Hospital staff; including Maureen, the Nurse Manager of the CICU and Kumar, the biomechanical engineer who has been so helpful in making sure we bring the correct type of equipment. Kumar took me on a "3-hour tour" of the Hospital, all four floors and every nook and cranny, very helpful to see the gears of KFH work.
I had my first harrowing experience last night coming home from dinner at Sol e Luna. In a raging downpour, our taxi was forced to perform a hill start on the busy thoroughfare with what looked like a solid windshield it was so overcome by fog. Then we ran out of "petrol" and had to walk home anyway. Other than that is has been great!
This morning I had breakfast and a team meeting with the Australians and am trying to commit all their names to memory. They have been very welcoming. Then we all tromped down to King Faisal Hospital and all 35 of us helped unpack, the ICU was done in 3 hours and the OR was done in 7 hours. After begging and groveling with customs for some bags, including missing instruments, OOH hopes to start surgeries tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment