Changes

 

 

It’s arrived! At last, ten days ago, a small lorry drew up with the new equipment for the maternity unit. Using quite a lot of man power and a few coca-colas the pallets were transferred to the unit and Helen and I set about unpacking .

''It’s like Christmas'' said Helen

 ''Better'' I replied.

 

Then it was time to test our Ikea skills as we put together the flat pack normal beds and delivery beds, drip stands and wheeled support for the baby bed. Everything seems to be fine and just what we need. It fits well in the space we have and begins to make it all seem a reality.

 

 

 

There are a few final touches to be made to the building and then we can distribute all the equipment around, plan for the opening and get ready for the rush. This month has already been busy and with around 4 babies a day we always looked likely to pass our previous maximal number of deliveries, 120. 

 

In our cramped and basic existing unit we have managed to assist even more women than we expected with a safe delivery. Today with 15 hours of the month left there have been 142 births with 3 women currently in labour! Looking at the graph puts it in context and it looks a little less amazing and  more like a logical trend, helped this year by the community outreach project. However it is more difficult to predict the quantum leap that may well happen once the new maternity unit with its shiny new beds and spacious rooms is opened.

 

Hopefully with the new equipment we can now provide even better care. We have more of all the basic tools and also a new oxygen concentrator/small surgical lamp/pulse oximeter/electronic baby scales/electric blood pressure machine and most exciting of all a CTG machine to enable us to monitor a difficult labour and see when the baby is in distress. We hope this will help us to avoid some still births especially when the women have come with other signs that the baby may be having problems and up till now we only had very basic ways of checking all was well. It will remain to be seen if the women will accept a caesarean under these circumstances but we can only hope and pray.

As you know our work in Chad will be changing over the coming months. This gives us plenty to think about as we unpack and organise, make local purchases and get the final touches done before opening the new unit. There is the potential for a further big increase in the number of women and babies helped and plans for the future need to be carefully laid so that all goes well during this time of transition and beyond. The hospital needs to  be well prepared to meet the challenge of the numbers whilst maintaining quality of care. Please pray for wisdom and Gods guidance.