Week 4 – 6th July 2015

Dear all,

So my final week.

As I mentioned last time, this week lots of actions started earlier on came together and this week, rather than writing chronologically, I’ll try and show a few things that were changed as a result of our work together in the maternity unit.

Patient privacy

One of the issues that we had raised on a post-it note by the night shift was that it was possible to see into th...

Week 3 – 28th June 2015

Dear all,

So week three has been and gone and I am writing this with just one week to go! Week three was all about action. We did more physical organising, built things and changed things this week and I met other members of the health centre team, who were also keen to make changes in their areas along the lines of what we are doing in the maternity unit.

Monday was intended to be about the sto...

Week 2 – 21st June 2015

Dear all,

So, week 2. Overall this week turned out to be more about me getting to know more detail about how the maternity unit’s processes work, especially the stock and ordering systems, shift handovers and daily checks. It was a week when I realised that there are many parallels between how the team in the maternity unit work and how we work in steel industry and when the reality of working...

Cheryl is volunteering at Brikama Health Centre for 4 weeks, assisting Alice Clack & Gemma Sheridan with systems management.

So, I’ve just finished my first week out here. First of all, nothing really prepared me for how hot the middle of the day is! I thought having worked on construction sites and in factories in India and China nothing would surprise me but the middle of the day here, say 12pm to 3pm isn’t just ho...

Well, Dr Clack is back and very welcome.  After a smooth flight and a good night’s sleep, we arrived on the labour ward the following morning and were back down to earth with a bang.

Preeclampsia is a common illness in pregnancy which affects most body systems often starts with high blood pressure and protein in the urine.  It then gradually gets worse until the baby is born and the placenta delivered.  One of the m...

I arrived back in Brikama on 6th May to take over from Dr Johan Creemers as a senior doctor in the Major Health Centre training junior doctors and midwives in MCAI's Advanced Obstetrics & Neonatal Training Programme. Having worked in the unit last autumn, I took a break to go back to the UK and study for a Diploma in Reproductive Health in Developing Countries at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. We looked a...