Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Wow, one travel over our road from Karoi and you will see why we are dreaming of a helicopter.  This is the worse it has been in 34 years I have been here.  No one has worked on it for 4 years and now with an abundance of rain this year, it is a mess.  It used to take us 1 hr and 15 minutes to Karoi our nearest town.  Now it is 2- 2 1/2 hours!  We have 2 ways to go and we can’t decide if one is better than the other.  We always say it is shorter to the tar one way so at least the agony of the first isn’t so long, so we usually choose that way! With the rain there have been big gullies and hole that have washed away in the road--it is always a challenge.  Most of us refuse to go to town unless absolutely necessary.  It is so painful!  Major goes 2 times a week sometime!  Glad he is younger and can drink a lot of coffee/coke to keep going! We were happy to welcome our UK Trust board members, Gillian and Mike Withers from Crowthorne, ...

Those of you who know us at Chidamoyo or have been here to visit with us know how “cool” we are are, but this week we got even “cooler!”  We had a new air conditioning unit put into our labortory to keep the machines cool and running.  Without the air conditioning they were shutting down because they were overheating.  So with the new air conditioner we can keep going even in our hot season. We also put an additional air condition in our operating room and it is very cool now for our doctors operating.  This week I got to enjoy it on Friday when I had several cases to do.  I think we will be fighting to work in theater and the Lab in October during our hot days! We are thankful for our supporters who helped us make a big change  in both departments that will help our patient care be better.  Thank you! Our only doctor left last Saturday to attend a family wedding in South Africa, so it has been me trying to run everything and do my job an...

New and exciting developments are happening at the hospital.  This past week we finally got installed our Full Blood Count machine and Electrolyte machine that was donated by the Rotary Club of Sebastopol, CA.  We hope to arrange the official turnover ceremony with the Harare Rotary club this week. Let me tell you some exciting things that happened with these machines.  We ordered and paid for the machines in early September.  They promised to delivery them in 1 month.  We waited 1 month and called, yes they are coming.  Then we kept calling every week and we would get some excuse and a promise they were on the way. In December when we got worried they were taking us and our $25,000 for a ride we called and said they better be delivered in 2 weeks or we wanted all our money back with interest! Within a week our machines were delivered. Then we had to call them several times about coming to set up the machines for us and teach our Lab guy how to d...

This has been a busy week.   We said goodbye to Tim, Suzanne, Rob and Kelsy, 4th year medical students from Ohio State.   They left to go to the Falls for a couple of days and then left Zimbabwe Thursday for cold and snowy Ohio! Sunday, Scott Irwin, a UC Davis graduate and waiting to go to medical school, arrived.   He is very eager and we have been putting him to work.   He has gone out to a Well Baby and an ART clinic.   He has been busy following Dr. Kabanzi around and I put him to work putting a cast on and helping in our ART clinic research project.   We are happy with his attitude and willingness to jump right in.   He is doing well learning some Shona too!   He asked me when I felt the calling to be a nun, and I quickly told him I wasn't a nun, but that all nurses here are called Sister.   I told him actually I am Protestant and I am sure the Catholic church would have kicked me out being a nun with my big mouth! Friday we wen...

Sorry it has been so long I have written.  I just found one that I thought was published after Christmas and it was never published.  So here I am to catch you up. We brought in the New Year with a church service and prayer time before we set off our Chinese fire crackers.  We are never sure what they will do year to year as all the instructions are in Chinese!  These did shoot up into the air! We enjoyed good rain on NY Day and I spent the day taking my Christmas decorations down!  The next day we had to go back to the reality of work.  On the 3rd of January we lost one of our doctors, Dr. Shield Kajese who was notified at the last minute he was taken into a 4 years residency program for anesthesia.  He was with us 3 years as our Medical Superintendent.  We are so sad to seem him go but happy for his acceptance into training he wants to do.  His wife is staying with us as a nurse for now so we are happy he will still be around now and t...

Today is Boxing Day here and a holiday and so thought I would share with you how our Christmas went.   Ours was blessed and hope the same for you. On Tuesday the 17 th of December we started our Christmas activities off with a movie that we put on for the whole community in the courtyard of the hospital.   We played “The Nativity” for over 200 people that came.   We played it under the stars and it almost seemed like we were there for the birth! The same day a group from Major’s church in Jinga came to present plates and cups they had bought for the hospital to help with the fire.   Our churches have been so supportive and encouraging to us. Also one of our staff members who is a volunteer Nurse Aide made some stirring spoons for making sadza, and gave them to the hospital. On Friday night they played another movie at the hospital but had to stop half way when the rain came thundering down!   Everyone was happy for the rain so no one complained! ...