An interesting few days

This week I have been in Addis Ababa, at the Ethiopian paediatric society meeting. It was really interesting, not particularly because of the content of the meeting (although the content was good), but because of the opportunity to network a little with other paediatricians in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Paediatric society are doing really good work, developing national management guidelines, encouraging continuing professional development and accountability, and providing training for staff to help improve conditions in the country’s paediatric wards. They also made us as VSO paediatricians very welcome, and invited us out for dinner on both evenings, which  gave us really good opportunities to discuss some of the things we are trying to achieve in our placements, and work out just how we fit into the multitude of NGOs working in Ethiopia. I met representatives from the Ministry of Health, the world health organisation and other NGOs such as ICAP. We also managed to get ourselves invited to a meeting about improving neonatal health which is one of the main goals of many of the paediatric placements here. It’s is a bit frustrating that we hadn’t been invited before this, especially since it is a major reason for our being here, but we did get there eventually. Two of the doctors I work with in Hiwot Fana Hospital were also there, although I didn’t know they were coming. They were really enthusiastic about making some changes in our neonatal unit and I hope that we will now be able to work together as a team to improve things.

The other change in the last few days is that the small rains have come with a vengeance. The Ethiopian climate has two wet seasons: The small rains in Feb & March and the big rains in July, August and September. The rains are late, but very refreshing. Now instead of 25 – 30 ^oC and sunshine, we have cooler weather, a build up of cloud through the morning and early afternoon and then torrential rain and spectacular thunder and lightening in the late afternoon and evening. It’s the first rain Calum has seen since arriving in mid December! The arrival of the rains means we are likely to be in with a busy month or so at work and the incidence of malaria and water borne infections will rise significantly...