Rather more importantly it is Week minus 10 in our countdown to opening the hospital. Soon we will need to be ready. At Week minus 3 on Thursday 11th November 2010 we aim to open to patients and in Week Zero on Thursday 2nd December we will have our Official Opening Ceremony. This not only sounds like a count down to launch of a space mission it feels like it too, and with weekly action plans and checklists we will try to avoid stopping the clock and launch on time. It is often said that the ‘Devil is in the detail’ but we have rather found that God has been there with us guiding and helping.
It is exciting to see things coming together; for instance we now have a pharmacy filled with a 2 month supply of generic drugs. Our only remaining really essential drug that we lack is Ketamine which will be our principal anaesthetic. We will have to arrange import of a years supply from Europeand as it is now a drug of abuse in the UK, this will be rather complicated and will require letters from the Ministry of Health.
Ruth, Rebecca and I had fun putting the tablets, syrups, creams and injectable drugs into alphabetical order on the shelves yesterday afternoon which will help with the occasional patients that we have to treat. If you think that sounds like exploitation of children don’t worry it was more like playing at shops and at least they had the benefit of an air conditioned room at 20C. It was a humid 37C brewing a thunderstorm outside.
The next couple of days will be busy as we enter the next phase of our recruitment process. On Tuesday we will have 200 qualified nursing and midwifery applicants to sit a written test at a school in N’djamena. We only need to recruit 10 nurses and 5 midwives so this is a difficult process. We hope as a result of the test to select about 30 candidates for practical tests and interview. You may wonder why doctors don’t figure on the list, this is because there is no medical unemployment and therefore none available. There are only 400 doctors in a country of 11 million people and the 20-30 who qualify each year are automatically in government service for their first 10 years. We will have to be patient and wait for the Ministry of Health to send us one.
Finally over the next couple of weeks we have overlapping visits by Steve Sanderson of BMS and Bert Oubre and other members of the CEF board. There will be plenty of meetings as there are strategic decisions on the relationship with the Health Ministry that need to be made and official documents that need drafting. Also we will discuss models for fees at the hospital; these need to be as low as possible whilst assuring long term financial viability. We will also meet with other followers of Jesus both Chadian and others to discuss how best to live out the Good News of the Kingdom of God in this context. Please think of Bert who in addition to having the responsibility of chairing our meetings will also try to bring a 39 litre ( 8 gallon) aluminium pressure cooker as part of his luggage. This is not a luxury destined to cook meals for the dignitaries and guest at the opening ceremony nor is it destined to cook food for the poor patients. It is rather an essential piece of low technology equipment that will be used on a gas burner to sterilise surgical equipment. It happens to be half the price in the US compared to the UK. I do hope they are kind to him at check in.
Hi Mark, Andrea, Ruth and Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteGood to see things taking shape. We will pray this Sunday that the Ketamine arrives by the openning,that you find really suitable nurses and midwives and the meetings with the ministry are productiive.
Love Noreen -Woodgrange Baptist Church