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Covid Lockdown--Zimbabwe style, Two new vehicles and Happy Birthday Major

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Not much to write about during these days of stay at home.No traveling, no direct patient care, and best of all no suspected cases of Cornavirus here!
I usually come to the hospital Monday-Friday 0700-1200  to do office work and Internet and go home after tea.
Like many of you I have been spending a lot of time sorting, cleaning closets and drawers and getting rid of things I do not use!Major loves to hoard so I dump it all on him!I have almost finished all my closets and drawers and feel better about no clutter!  Major says if this stay at home order lasts for too long I might not have anything left in my house!
We continue to see patients at the hospital.We let 3 in at a time through our fence and we have our OPD outside with our staff in PPE.
There are now officially 46 cases positive cases in Zimbabwe, 4 deaths, 18 recovered and 24 active cases out of 28,019 tested. (www.worldometers.info) There have been 5 cases and 1 death in our Province and none in our district.We have no test kits…
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The age of Covid-19

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On the 23rd of March Zimbabwe was ordered into a 21-day lockdown and suddenly life changed for many people.  Unfortunately, many people took it as a holiday from work and started going to stores and friends and walking to "hang out."  The Army was sent into townships to enforce the order and many people were beat and sent home or arrested where they then were put in crowded jails with more people!
Some people took the order seriously and at the hospital we had already started a screening process and letting 3 people in at a time to inside the gate. We have moved our OPD to our outside veranda and don't allow people to walk inside the hospital, but outside.  We have been having daily staff meetings, we are wearing our PPE and we have cut back on staff so less people will get exposed!
We are running about 15 in-patients including Maternity and we are feeding caregivers so they are not in and out of the hospital.  We are also feeding staff on duty so they are not going back a…
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Covid-19--The world has changed

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Throughout the world we are all facing big changes in our life.Many are on self-quarantine; many are staying home because their state has been put on lock-down and all of us are trying to avoid getting this flu.


It has hit Zimbabwe.We have 5 confirmed cases—1 death and 1 doctor at Harare Hospital, in Zimbabwe.They supposedly have only tested 150 people and as all of you are aware the results take 5+ days.  The tests are only available in Harare.


We have few test kits in the country, no PPE and so nurses started a country wide strike today which means most hospitals are totally shut down.Our local district hospital—which is our only other hospital in the district besides us—sent a message today to not send any patients as they were closed!With no PPE you can’t blame people who make little money stopping work.We hope it will cause some action from the government and not for them to continue to be quiet!


We do have PPE here thanks to many donations from the US that has been sent in our cont…
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Back in Zimbabwe--Safe and Sound

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It’s hard to believe but Major and I left from the US on the afternoon of Wednesday 12 February and arrived after 3 flights in Harare, Zimbabwe on Friday afternoon on 14 February.

All went well with only an hour delay on the plane from Johannesburg, South Africa to Harare, Zimbabwe due to a bad storm over the airport in Harare.We finally arrived in rain on and off the rest of the day.


We were met by Major’s wife and driver Clemence as well as a relative of Sylvia’s.We drove to our townhouse in Harare after stopping at a grocery store and buying some lunch and a few groceries for $850!(Rate is now 25:1 so that was $34 US).


I rested at home while Major ran around and did some things for the hospital.We went out for dinner—which cost $1,100 for 4 of us ($44)!These high prices are reminding quickly of the hyperinflation of the Zim dollar days from 2006-2009!


We spent the night in Harare, and we slept well until about 4 a.m. and then I was wide awake.Electricity came on about 10:15 p.m. and wa…
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