Team Ethiopia South: Yirgalem Hospital (Thurs and Fri)

On Thursday, we headed further south to Yirgalem hospital and again saw a lot of rural scenery on our way. We arrived at the hospital and it was of course different than what we’re used to—lots of open-air passageways linking several buildings, with people crowded around outside the buildings waiting. Some people were lying on stretchers made of canvas tied over the top of a recycled metal frame. We started out sitting down with the hospital manager, a doctor, an environmental engineer and a couple of biomedical technicians to explain our mission. After we showed them the examples of projects last year and explained our goals, they had a whole list of issues to tell us about. A lot of the issues center on existing donated equipment that isn’t working and they don’t have the parts or service support to repair it. Yodit did a great job of helping to explain that we were there to look for ideas for new medical inventions and I know we will help a lot of developing hospitals in the long-run, but I still couldn’t help wishing I were also a device technician who could go around and fix at least some of the literally dozens of malfunctioning equipments they have. After that extremely useful overview meeting, we visited the eye clinic and talked with them about the exams, glaucoma surgeries, and cataract surgeries they perform. We learned all the eyeglasses frames and lenses are donated from an organization in Germany, and the Yirgalem clinic re-shapes the closest available combo of lenses to fit into a frame. Interestingly, the eye surgery team also travels out to health centers 10 days out of every month to perform cataract surgeries on more rural patients. They have to pack up a bunch of equipment that’s not really designed to be mobile and take it with them… Their microscope for doing the surgeries has a malfunctioning light, so they have to use an external light source to illuminate the eye from the side, which I think would make the surgery a lot more difficult. The clinicians were extremely knowledgeable and I really admire the level of skill they must have to be able to do procedures with far less than optimal equipment and conditions.

We also visited the waste disposal area to see the incinerator and waste pit. We got to talk with the laboratory about lots of different tests that they do, and had a really long visit in the labor and delivery ward, although there were not any active labors going on. Finally, we visited the ACT center for managing HIV patients before calling it a day.

It was a bit overwhelming not only to see the contrast in the facilities compared to what we’re accustomed to, but also to hear so many issues from the clinicians about their equipment and other resources. There are so many things that need to be tackled… And I wish there were a way to give them a more immediate improvement to their everyday work. It’s going to be a challenge choosing the biggest problems… It’s only been my first day of actually being in a hospital and already I wish we were choosing more than 4 projects for the developing world.

Today (Friday) we were back at the hospital to visit more areas. We talked with people and observed in the ER, x-ray room, maintenance/repair room, laundry room, children’s ward, delivery recovery room, and the operating room. We watched a hysterectomy being performed and got to talk to the surgeon afterwards. He made a very good point about them not needing the “best” or “latest” equipment, but just needing simple stuff that doesn’t break! The biggest issue that seems to be facing the hospital is equipment that breaks down and doesn’t have parts/support for repair. In the maintenance area, we also learned that the only available defibrillator was not working. The ER was also interesting: We learned they have one ambulance to bring people from as far as about an hour away, and the ER staff deals with whatever emergency comes in the door, but the only equipment they had were a BP machine, stethoscope, meds and suturing supplies.