Walking Wounded

Student at First Aid

Sudanese stretcher

Tuesday 27th September

Just finished the First Aid block of lectures, all 14hrs plus 6hrs practical sessions.

It has been a good opportunity to get to know the students; there are now 3 girls, one repeating as she did not get through last year. So, she is back to try and sit again. I do hope she makes it, as we need females in the health care setting here.

Already she has missed many lectures as one of her two children is in this hospital with complications of malaria (fitting); she sleeps by her side at night then tries to come to lessons.

One of the other girls is pregnant, due in 4 weeks. The third girl has a small son of 3 years, who she has not seen for 6 months as she lives in the Nuba mountain area of the country (it would take at least 3 days to get there) - if she had transport.

I have learnt so much from them! How to scare off lions - but only if there are more than 3 of you, otherwise you climb the nearest tree! What to do if there are hyenas around, how to do bone setting, what plant to put on what wound.
I think they all should have been at the front of the class, not me! We did have lots of fun doing bandaging and slings.

It was very hard to show them how to fight a fire (as if they do not know). I found one (empty) water fire extinguisher. At least it was red and they could see how it would work. The only place to get it filled would be in Nairobi, Kenya.

There are no buildings of any significance here in Sudan to save, nor any insurance (sorry, Ian!). No fire blankets, I could only find one small, very old, piece of hose pipe, with lots of kinks and no connections. Anyway, we did lots of role play, of moving patients on mattresses, blankets, away from the fire. They do have quite big grass fires here as in northern Australia; they ‘burn off ‘after the tall grasses have been collected for thatching.

I will try and make some signs for ‘Assembly Point’, ‘No Smoking’ (picture sign). Perhaps I will find a bigger hose so we could put it on a bracket with a sign saying ‘Fire Hose’. Ian is going to do some Googling for me to see what he can find.
No chance of purchasing a fire blanket in the market here, but we do have some quite thick blankets which I think would smother a small fire if necessary.

Since last year we have got about 4 more power points in the hospital, so we now have 7 in total!!! Up to now, these people have never seen electric burns from electrical appliances (only from lightning strikes). There is no electricity apart from the solar panels in the hospital. There are no electric irons only charcoal ones, no electric kettles, only pans for water to go on an open fire, no TV.

So, they have no idea about how dangerous it is. They try to stick round plugs into square holes. Force two pins into three holes using a pencil for one hole.
Slowly, some are getting mobile phones: there is no reception but they use them to play music and they all need recharging, so you can see the problem it is starting to cause with the little electricity we do have. It is a country where the people want to develop faster than the new nation can.

There is just no infrastructure for power, sewerage or water. Never mind roads, postal service, banking, birth and death certificates, passports. It has just been released that this new nation of the Republic of South Sudan is now definitely the poorest in the world. Prior to this, I think it was second poorest, with Somalia first.