Update from Chair's visit to Jinja
JPIP's Chair, Jenny, is visiting Jinja in person this month to arrange the order for a new baby CPAP machine, drop off kit sourced in the UK, catch up with local medical staff, meet volunteers from other NGOs, and report back on our ongoing projects. Who needs time to eat or sleep?! Jenny has funded her own travel and planned a seriously action-packed trip. Here are a few of her updates from the front line!
Wow it's been a whirlwind couple of days!
Inspected two inverter power back up systems that we left here in 2015. It wasn't good news: rats had entered one system and eaten cables and part of the motherboard and transformer. The other system had broken some time ago and was not salvageable. We're getting some quotes now for replacements...
In the children's ward the staff were hard at work and just one little boy wanted to come and say "hi"...
One highlight has been buying cable and equipment for Yazid, the hospital electrician, to connect the malnutrition unit to the generator system. I ended up doing the opposite of bartering and telling the shop keeper he'd misread the numbers and was giving us 50 metres for free! That caused a lot of excitement and I think I've made a friend for life. I had to pay a whole extra 50p to get the cable back to the hospital - on the back of a motor bike!
So lovely to be able to do a tiny thing and bring such happiness. Like buying a blood pressure machine for ward 3 Sister Evelyn, who had found me yesterday to say there was an emergency need for a BP machine on the adult wards, as they had none at all as the cuff was now leaking.
Plenty more to do with the rest of my time here and not a minute to lose!
