We have arrived!

Hello everyone,

Apologies for the delay in the first post - we had a bit of a tortuous journey and it has taken us a while to recover...!

So, we left London City airport on Sunday evening (we managed to watch the Murray match in the departure lounge before we left!).  Unfortunately, the flight was delayed in getting to Amsterdam....  We ran all the way to the desk only to find that we weren't allowed to get on the plane (despite the fact that we could see the plane on the runway!).  So, we had an unscheduled 24 hours in Amsterdam - pedaloes on the canals and lovely walks and time in the park in the sunshine (a little silver lining).

The delays didn't end there!  We had a 3 hour stop-over in Athens to collect luggage to take to Nairobi, which was complicated by that dreaded call - "Is there a doctor on the aircraft?"...  My heart sank as I stood up to find that I was in fact the most senior doctor on the plane!  Suffice to say the equipment wasn't up to scratch (a broken stethoscope and no oxygen sats probe!) and I was concerned that the patient may have had a PE (blood clot in the lungs), so he was taken off the aircraft to a Greek hospital (rather unwillingly!).  All of this meant that we missed our connection to Entebbe...  Fortunately, we were able to get on a later flight, and arrived at Entebbe on Tuesday afternoon (approx. 30 hours later than planned!).  Dr Jim McWhirter and his colleague were there to meet us and we set off on the 4 hour drive from Kampala to Villa Maria Hospital near Masaka.

When we finally arrived at 9.30pm yesterday we were given a very warm welcome, with dinner and great accommodation.  We all have our own rooms with double beds and some are even ensuite!

Today has been our first day here.  We met Dr Moses (the medical superintendent) this morning and were taken on a tour of the hospital by one of the lovely medical records staff.  I kept hearing cries of 'where is Dr Amy?!' as I was introduced to all the staff at the hospital (clearly unable to keep up with the pace...!).  We visited the HIV clinics, pharmacy, laboratory, male and female wards, paediatric ward, and maternity centre (with antenatal and postnatal wards and delivery suite).

All the students have now got a better idea of how to undertake their projects and the resources that will be available to them.  This afternoon we have been planning and exploring the hospital.  The data collection starts in earnest tomorrow!  Felix, Emma and Rachel will be heading to the children's ward for their projects; Nadia will be based on the children's ward and in the community, Gemma will be on delivery suite and the postnatal ward, Sarah-Jane will be on delivery suite, and Flo and Cate will be with the ART (anti-retroviral) team in the community.

We are planning a trip to Mburo National Park on Saturday, and the beach on Sunday.

We will keep you updated with our progress over the next few weeks!

Amy and the Uganda team