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Just gave an 11 year old girl dying of TB a paper wire butterfly and got a big smile. Her name is Jane. Beautiful girl dying because her parents stopped her course of antibiotics too early, and because she’s so malnourished her immune system isn’t working well. So thin and so ill. She needs the consultant to review her but he hasn’t turned up in 3 days. Would be good to pray for her.

There are around 80 patients in paediatrics at the moment but it gets up to 300 during malaria epidemics. When that happens it’s 3 kids to a bed and more on the floor and about 3-4 kids die every day. There’s 1 paediatric consultant, 1 registrar and 13 nurses. 90% of the kids have malaria/anaemia, some also have pneumonia or meningitis. About a quarter of the kids are HIV positive.

Then there’s the malnutrition unit which is pretty heartbreaking. Yesterday we saw one little boy who had protein-malnutrition. When you don’t have enough protein in your blood fluid leaks out which is why they have swollen feet/tummy. If it’s really bad the skin starts to peel away. This poor kid had raw skin all over him and his clothes were wet with the seepage from the skin.

Some of the kids are here because their parents have starved them as punishment. Most of them are here because their parents can’t afford food. Most people grow matoke (savoury bananas) on a plot of land but apparently lots of families have to sell their crop to pay for school fees or rent or the dad spends it on alcohol. So the families don’t have enough to eat even though they grow lots of food. They’re not really big into family planning here so lots of people have more children than they can afford to feed.

Most of the parents take the kids to witch doctors first. Modern medicine is a last resort for a lot of people. If the child has an enlarged spleen (which you get with malaria) they make cuts in the kid’s skin or burn the skin with a hot metal grid over the spleen because they think that will shrink it. They think the big spleen causes the kid’s fever rather than the other way round. The doctors try to educate the parents but don’t know how much they listen to them.

There’s a sweet little boy called Mike who was abandoned so is living on paediatrics until he can walk, then the priests mother will adopt him. He’s so cuddly, he gets a lot of love. Despite all the above paeds is less intense than o&g, really enjoying it :) It seems quite simple as well because everyone has malaria and there’s limited treatments! Feel like I’m a bit more useful now I know how lab forms/notes work. Life in the hospital is good, there’s a great group of people here so we have big dinners together which is really nice! Am exciting about the weekend in Jinja this weekend! Have just downloaded skype so if you fancy a chat add me and let me know when you’re free :)

Lots of love!
Christine