Tuesday 13 January 2009

Midwifery in Ghana! UniBreak placement


Shelley delivering babies in Ghana


HI All, finally managed to get away to Cape Coast for the weekend and find a great deal here at the internet cafe. Been a while and so much has happened but I'll try and update each group for you and give you some highlights and if time permits add some photos.

Hospital stuff: Well for my midwifery colleages and others interested the hospital work was pretty full on. The first day I started I saw a breech birth, met a mother who delivered triplets spontaneously, delivered a baby, did a number of VE (I think I now have the hang of it, and cared for a woman who had placental abruption who later passed away. Other things I've seen since include the piercing of all girl babies ears with just studs, the midwives helping push the baby out by pressing hard on the uterus (I hate this and wish I could tell them to stop- cringe) and in C/S they remove the uterus from the body to stitch it back up before replacing it- this looks very odd. I got to deliver quite a few babies including one with compound presentation (hand beside the face). Some days there were no deliveries so I folded gauze swabs and cotton wool for 5-6hrs (very boring) but the busy days made up for it. I also got heaps of practice at palpation and hearing the FH with the pinnards as we had to check every pregnant woman every shift.

Family: I'm not completely animal deprived as our dogs Whiskey and Cougar are very fun and the cat occasonally warms up to you. My Ghanian family has been great and I met all the siblings last weekend as we had a special thanksgiving celebration for our departure from our current home in Akwatia as the mother is be transferred to another hospital to work about 1 1/2 hrs away.
We'll be moving by the end of this week but I might be away for the actual shift as I'm spending a week in the north as of Thursday and visiting Mole National Park with some volunteer friends. I decided as we're moving that I would finish up with the hospital work and spend the last 3 weeks off travelling and spending time with the family.

Church people: I've been attending the pentecostal church my family go to and it's quite different. The service goes for 3 hours but no one turns up for the first hour (Ghana time) and people wander in whenever they get there. Everyone wears traditional Ghana dress, including me since I had some clothes made by the seamstress. The sing and dance a lot, waving hankies, and the whole service is spoken in Twi (the native language) including the bible reading so can be quite boring for me. The thing I think is weirdest though and still don't understand is their offering system. They bring out this offering box and everyone gets up and puts money in then 10mins later they do it again and sometimes 3-4 times. I aksed my sister what it's for; one for thanksgiving, one your offertry and one your tithe. Don't ask me the difference but I learnt after the first Sunday not to put to much in the first one or you end up paying out a lot :)

Other notable points are that I finally got sick the weekend before last (throwing up) and you wouldn't believe the story. An international nurse friend from the hospital invited me back to her place for lunch and on the way we discussed food and what we'd tried. I said I had avoided salad even though I'd been craving fresh healthy stuff because of their preparation with their water. My friend, Jenni, said she had eaten it and been fine so didn't worry anymore. Well her host mother served lunch with a pile of salad and after discussing it with Jenni decided to go ahead and hog in but hey was I sorry the next morning. I slept all day with my mother forcing rehydrating salts down me and was fine.
Another story was the night I spent in the mountains because the driver misinterpreted my home town of Akwatia for another place called Nkwatia (easy mistake even after I asked numerous times whether they were taking me to Akwatia with nods every time). Oh well had an adventure and stayed overnight in a cheap hotel then took the trip back the next day along a 4WD track in a packed trotro. Speaking of trotros I rode in one yesterday with 19 people in a 15 seater was quite fun and at least very cheap.
Also had an interesting visit to the Compassion Child Sponsorship project out of Accra and visited 2 of the childrens families which was eye opening but the project was very well organised and I was surprised at the individual care provided to each child including areas; spiritual, educational, physical and social aspects. Was a great trip all round.


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