I left as planned three weeks ago to help set up the program to provide primary and secondary health care for the displaced families in the area of Lubero. We set up in an existing health center, working with their staff and recruiting others to accommodate the 50,000 displaced people, along with their local population.
Our small team stayed at the catholic mission in Lubero, where I had stayed 3 years ago for a weekend. It was great to see Father Robert again, and some of the brothers who are still there. Catholic missions in Africa often provide the services of a guest house for travellers, since hotels in the bush are inexistent. We rented 5 bedrooms, plus another one to use as an office.
The start-up went surprisingly well. We were able to negotiate with the Ministry of Public Health (with a bit of difficulty), our entry into the health center. Handicap International loaned us a small warehouse for our material. And the staff of the Kasalala health center welcomed us with open arms. We defined our staff needs to complement the 18 people already working there the first day, and developed the recruiting flyers. There were 2 days of collecting candidatures and the pre-selection. Recruiting interviews to hire 4 nurses, 1 hygienist, 2 drivers, 3 guards, 1 logistician and 1 administrator were done in a single day. And we started working in the health center the next day. As always here in Congo, we were able to find really good people.
During my stay in Lubero, it came to our attention that a cholera outbreak had begun farther north on the Congo/Uganda border at Kasindi. Cholera is a disease which propagates very rapidly, and it is deadly if not treated quickly. Basically, the cholera bacterium causes the body to eliminate all its water via constant defecation and vomiting – one dies from extreme dehydration. Treatment of cholera consists of pumping liquid back into the body as quickly as it is eliminated, until the bacterium dies on its own. At the same time, the patients must be isolated from the rest of the population, because the body wastes are extremely contaminating – they must be treated before disposal to avoid infection of others.
So once I had helped to get the Lubero operation going, I headed northeast to Kasindi to help set up the cholera treatment center. At Kasindi, a doctor, a logistician and a driver had arrived 2 days before me. The treatment center was already taking shape. I went to a larger town 2 hours away with the driver to rent 2 cars (1 with a driver) for the program, as well as to pay the guards at a warehouse we have there (prepositioning emergency stock, including the product we use to treat cholera!). Once we had the cars, we loaded up as much of the cholera drugs that we could hold and returned to Kasindi. Once again we defined our needs and started the recruiting process, this time even quicker than the last, due to the nature of the beast we were fighting. I spent a couple of days, finding a base (we basically took over a tiny hotel), making purchases for the treatment center, speaking with Ugandan health officials (who were VERY happy to see us there so that the epidemy would not spill over into their country), finding a place for the staff to eat, and posting recruiting flyers. Once again, we were able to find great people.
My trip was supposed to be 4 days when I left. It turned out to be 2 weeks - my jeans weighed about twice what they do when they are clean. I returned on Wednesday evening the 18th of March, to find an astounding number of mail messages to respond to.
And Friday and Saturday were wholly dedicated to the MSF field associative debates, where we bring in employees from each of the sites for the 4 sections of MSF in the region (France, Holland, Spain and Belgium), to discuss issues pertinent to our operations. Needless to say, the trip didn’t help to alleviate my work overload – I have just caught up with the backlog of mails. But I was really happy to help start up these programs. In Lubero, we are working well in the health center, and have started up some mobile clinics, treating displaced people in other villages. And in Kasindi, the cholera outbreak has been contained, and we will soon finish our intervention there.
But I can’t do everything. I felt so overwhelmed by the workload that I considered resigning from my post a couple of times lately, so that someone more capable could take over. I spoke this over with our medical coordinator, who told me that she had considered the same thing at about the same time. So we both decided to stick in out.
Our small team stayed at the catholic mission in Lubero, where I had stayed 3 years ago for a weekend. It was great to see Father Robert again, and some of the brothers who are still there. Catholic missions in Africa often provide the services of a guest house for travellers, since hotels in the bush are inexistent. We rented 5 bedrooms, plus another one to use as an office.
The start-up went surprisingly well. We were able to negotiate with the Ministry of Public Health (with a bit of difficulty), our entry into the health center. Handicap International loaned us a small warehouse for our material. And the staff of the Kasalala health center welcomed us with open arms. We defined our staff needs to complement the 18 people already working there the first day, and developed the recruiting flyers. There were 2 days of collecting candidatures and the pre-selection. Recruiting interviews to hire 4 nurses, 1 hygienist, 2 drivers, 3 guards, 1 logistician and 1 administrator were done in a single day. And we started working in the health center the next day. As always here in Congo, we were able to find really good people.
During my stay in Lubero, it came to our attention that a cholera outbreak had begun farther north on the Congo/Uganda border at Kasindi. Cholera is a disease which propagates very rapidly, and it is deadly if not treated quickly. Basically, the cholera bacterium causes the body to eliminate all its water via constant defecation and vomiting – one dies from extreme dehydration. Treatment of cholera consists of pumping liquid back into the body as quickly as it is eliminated, until the bacterium dies on its own. At the same time, the patients must be isolated from the rest of the population, because the body wastes are extremely contaminating – they must be treated before disposal to avoid infection of others.
So once I had helped to get the Lubero operation going, I headed northeast to Kasindi to help set up the cholera treatment center. At Kasindi, a doctor, a logistician and a driver had arrived 2 days before me. The treatment center was already taking shape. I went to a larger town 2 hours away with the driver to rent 2 cars (1 with a driver) for the program, as well as to pay the guards at a warehouse we have there (prepositioning emergency stock, including the product we use to treat cholera!). Once we had the cars, we loaded up as much of the cholera drugs that we could hold and returned to Kasindi. Once again we defined our needs and started the recruiting process, this time even quicker than the last, due to the nature of the beast we were fighting. I spent a couple of days, finding a base (we basically took over a tiny hotel), making purchases for the treatment center, speaking with Ugandan health officials (who were VERY happy to see us there so that the epidemy would not spill over into their country), finding a place for the staff to eat, and posting recruiting flyers. Once again, we were able to find great people.
My trip was supposed to be 4 days when I left. It turned out to be 2 weeks - my jeans weighed about twice what they do when they are clean. I returned on Wednesday evening the 18th of March, to find an astounding number of mail messages to respond to.
And Friday and Saturday were wholly dedicated to the MSF field associative debates, where we bring in employees from each of the sites for the 4 sections of MSF in the region (France, Holland, Spain and Belgium), to discuss issues pertinent to our operations. Needless to say, the trip didn’t help to alleviate my work overload – I have just caught up with the backlog of mails. But I was really happy to help start up these programs. In Lubero, we are working well in the health center, and have started up some mobile clinics, treating displaced people in other villages. And in Kasindi, the cholera outbreak has been contained, and we will soon finish our intervention there.But I can’t do everything. I felt so overwhelmed by the workload that I considered resigning from my post a couple of times lately, so that someone more capable could take over. I spoke this over with our medical coordinator, who told me that she had considered the same thing at about the same time. So we both decided to stick in out.
Our proposal for staff salary increases and job function scale revisions are still on hold in Paris. The staff are impatient, and Paris is blocking; due to the instability of the economy, they are rightly nervous about the amount of contributions we will receive during the coming year. A commission of 4 people will be coming in mid-April for 3 weeks to work with us on a final decision on these and some other pressing human resources issues. That’s a relief, but it will be an intense period for me.
So I am leaving Saturday the 4th of April for a week-long break BEFORE they arrive. I will be going to Lamu, an archipelago off the coast of Kenya, up near Somalia. It seems to be more expensive than Zanzibar, but it’s good to change destinations. And after 8 months of 12-13 hours a day 7 days a week, and 4 months after my last break, I really need a rest.
So I am leaving Saturday the 4th of April for a week-long break BEFORE they arrive. I will be going to Lamu, an archipelago off the coast of Kenya, up near Somalia. It seems to be more expensive than Zanzibar, but it’s good to change destinations. And after 8 months of 12-13 hours a day 7 days a week, and 4 months after my last break, I really need a rest.
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