First week at work

We’ve been at work for 3 days now and it’s been an enlightening experience to say the least. At 8am Monday morning we were met by the Social Worker, Clever, who gave us some brief information about the hospital – having fired lots of questions at him and receiving minimal useful information we hoped that there might be some sort of induction planned for us. However, we then found out that the Medical Rehab Worker, Josephine, who runs the rehab department and will be able to fill us in on the basics of what goes on is away on a workshop about 400km away all week…and there’s no phone coverage so we were unable to contact her…marvellous.

There’s a weekly Monday morning ward round where pretty much all the hospital staff trawl around the patients (we were introduced to 16 staff all together on the round), so patient confidentiality and bedside manner left a lot to be desired – it’s how we imagine it to have been 50 years ago in the UK, but with less of a grasp on basic hygiene. Some of the wards are pretty shabby – the ward marked ‘isolation’ has the door open and allows anyone in, and there’s a lack of water in the taps and no soap in sight! Despite all this the staff are really friendly and laid back - probably because they have a lot of time on their hands as the ratio of staff to patients is quite high. I think at the moment there are about 20 patients in the whole hospital so it gives you an idea of how small the town is.

For the rest of the day on Monday we had a number of frustrating conversations with various members of staff whereby people would give us information on a strictly need to know basis – i.e. unless we asked a very specific direct question we would get nothing, and even then it was hit and miss. We had several random patients just turn up in the department including a few children, a guy needing ferrell replacements on his ancient crutches, a woman with severe leg contractures due to being bed bound for 6 months in hospital….none of which we knew were coming, had any information on or spoke much English. As you can imagine, we went home that night feeling a bit deflated and wondering what on earth we are supposed to be doing here.


On Tuesday we took it upon ourselves to go on one of the outreach clinic visits to a settlement called Okondjatu, about 100km from Okakarara. It was an ideal opportunity to suss out the region properly. Initially the understanding of the Dr, HIV counsellor and pharmacist who we travelled with was that we would provide massage to people when we arrived. So we had to explain, in a diplomatic way, that 1 – we don’t really do a lot of massage, 2 – if we did then doing a one-off session once a month to people in the settlement would be a total waste of time, and 3 – it would take all day for the Herero ladies to remove their 10 layers of clothes anyway (we’ll post some photos soon – amazing outfits, they look like a cross between Victorian dress and a hammerhead shark!). We went along to observe (in the back of the pick up truck) and when we arrived all the patients were sat on the floor, spilling out of the clinic door. The Dr saw 87 patients in 6 hours – pretty impressive! – mostly heart problems, diabetes and OA, put down to the fact that they eat a diet of strictly no veg, meat, meat a bit more meat and soured milk. It really made us realise how little people have here, we saw donkeys pulling people along in carts, and again, lots of goats.

Wednesday was a better day. We were recognised by people at the hospital and our Otjiherero greetings are coming along well. We spoke on the telephone to another Physio volunteer working in the region who has given us some helpful information, putting us slightly more at ease, and we’re meeting up with her next week to find out more. We also met with the Principal Medical Officer who seems very down to earth and flexible which bodes well. It’s all a lot to adjust to, and as much as we keep telling ourselves that it’ll take a while to settle in, it’s strange not being busy and not knowing what to do….we’ll be learning a lot about patience!