Where has all the blood gone

A day late for all those fans waiting anxiuosly around the world to see if I have survived a week of my own cooking.Surprisingly I have with a little help from some friends.
It has been a strange week not just because Maggie is in Zanzibar. Our first UK students arrived and it has been a good distraction showing them around the delights of Masindi and the hospital. They are here to do research which is difficult in the best of places but a real challenge here. Hopefully they will get something useful out of the experience.
Medicine has been a bit bleak here. The child with a cleft palate seems to have disappeared. no one onn the ward remembers him going but he isnt there now. It looks like the parents decided against intervention and took him back to the village to die.the fact that they already had six children probably influenced the decision. the logistics of surviving in Kampala must have appeared unsurmountable.
We have 4 patients on the ward awaiting blood transfusion.They all have haemoglobins below 5 .One is said to be at 3g.l. There has been no blood at the hospital for 10 days. More worrying is that there is no blood at any other hospital. We phoned the national blood bank today and they had none but hoped to get some tomorrow.It is likely that our patients will have to hang on for another week. Evidently this is a regular occurence when the kids are on school holidays as much of the blood is taken from students.We are not allowed to collect blood locally as we do not have facilities to test for hepatitis and HIV.
The drug supply is still precarious but we have been given permission to order some relevant drugs. let us hope they are in stock. we have the wrong testing strips for the glucometers that the ministry gave out. No one is sure whether the right ones are available in Uganda.
Time is really passing quickly. This week we shall have been here 8 months which is a third of our time.I am still not sure what we are achieving in the long term but every one still seems happy we are here. Ugandans are forever saying thank you and well done and I am not sure why.
I am sure Maggie will want to post her news from Zanzibar when she gets back. She is due home tomorow.


Chris