Our own royal visit!

The ‘official’ visit went rather well all in all I think. There have been several issues troubling Grace and I relating to the nature of the running and co-ordination of the project (too sensitive to document openly on this megaphone of a blog) - but having Karilyn and Richard visit; with their years of experience of working in Africa, grey hair and an ability to speak Swahili, has been a huge influence and certain issues are now on their way to being addressed in earnest. There are also plans afoot for more work in the area which is very exciting indeed.

Our royal couple were also here for our morphine training day which went exceedingly well (silly choice of word as I am now side tracked by the thought of Mr Kipling cakes…) – so anyway it went tremendously well except perhaps for the moment when I lent on a wonky desk and sent the plastic morphine bottle with its amber coloured gold elixir crashing to the floor. Heart sink panic all round as I frantically scrabbled around on the floor to check the bottle had not smashed and sent our precious morphine everywhere. Thankfully not a single drop spilt so the controlled drug book remains balanced and my character remains intact!

Following this we held our first palliative care team meeting. We have been trying to get a regular meeting off the ground since we started but trying to get Tanzanians to meet all together at a set time is like, as Cosmos the pastor put in in his sermon this weekend, “ trying to get a ‘big horse’ through the eye of a needle!”  Bless him – we have now taught him the word for camel! But anyway the meeting finally took place – I think helped only by the fact that they were promised their ‘incentives’ (pay) on the same day. So the carrot and stick approach worked and the meeting took place and a rudimentary palliative care register was formed and various issues raised and discussed. Whether this continues when we leave is sadly not so hard to predict but a ‘date of next meeting’ has been arranged in part I think to humour the mzungus!

It was also national Albino day whilst Karilyn and Richard were here and Shinyanga this year was hosting the national festivities. It would have been rude not to have gone for a nosey out of curiosity. Albinos are currently lobbying the government for free sunscreen which is very expensive to protect them from skin cancers. I also learnt that since 2008 there have been 15 Albino killings in Shinyanga alone as there is a superstitious belief that having the organs of an Albino will bring you riches. Doctors have even been known to fight over who will circumcise an Albino patient so that they can keep the foreskin remnants….. nasty! So all in all quite a scary prospect to be an Albino in Africa and hence necessary events like this to raise awareness and support.

So - our mission at present is now to devise some sort of ‘exit strategy’ for our departure in 2 weeks time. Our Blue Peter wall has a list as long as my tape worms (!) of things to do between now and leaving which covers things as diverse as visiting those patients on morphine one last time to ensure tight mechanisms in place for follow up when we leave, to making thank you cards, sticking up referral posters in the regional hospital after our final teaching session there on Wednesday, meeting one last time with the RMO (regional medical officer) to fill him with enthusiasm for palliative care and encourage him to include palliative care in his budget plans, to buying gloves as leaving presents, cleaning our house and sourcing pigs, yes pigs! I’ll tell you more about the pigs when and if they materialise!

Anyway - time for bed said zebedee

C x