Msaranga Clinic was Awesome

We were a little apprehensive to go to work today. It's been so hit and miss with what we've witnessed and done. We came home on cloud 9 after the day we'd had today. I'm going to have to ask our nurse's name as it was a little different and neither did Ally.

On arrival we saw a newborn babe who was ill. I saw immediately that her fontanelles were sunken. The little babe also had a fever and her reflexes were sluggish, particular the Babinski reflex. We were very concerned about this little one, particularly the fluid intake of the babe.

We took the babe's temp and were relieved to see that it had come down. The next time we went to check I was shocked to see how they'd covered up the baby with swaddling and blankets. We took the temp again and it had risen slightly. We asked our head nurse and got the okay to uncover the baby. Within ten minutes we noticed an improvement. Ally flushed the cannula and our nurse questioned us as to why. She allowed us to do this and we were so rapt. We also wrote down the times and encouraged the mother to feed half hourly and we also ensured that she continued to drink large amounts of water.

To top off our day, we were asked for advice for future changes to make the clinic a better facility. We were so touched to see that we were respected to the extent that our thoughts are going to be listened to. So we floated out of the clinic today feeling that we'd really made a difference.

I didn't think I'd enjoy working with mums and babes but I loved handling the baby and advising the mum on how to feed and to feed more frequently.

In the afternoon we got home and had lunch, a lie down and then schmirmoff time. We will head out to a Chinese Restaurant soon as are not into having fried fish, which is on the menu tonight.


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Location:Moshi, Tanzania.