Arrivée au Sénégal

Wow, it's been a tough couple of days! My flight was delayed some 2 hours, then by the time my baggage had arrived, negotiated the taxi price and eventually found the appartment (not straight forward!), it was already 4:30am. After just a couple of hours sleep I had to leave in search of the hospital to meet my supervisor at 9am at the hospital.

One of the main things I have established since arriving is I CANNOT speak french when I'm tired! Oo la la, c'est tellement difficile! Although I'm sure it will get easier, but it's going to be challening and exhausting.

Hopital de Fann, where I will be working for 6 weeks, is one of the main government hospitals in Dakar, and has the only infectious disease department in the city. It has quite a juxtaposition of resources. I am sitting in an air-conditioned room with 12 brand new flat screen Windows XP computers, where the doctors and students have continual access to the internet. Just off the same corridor, there is 'les soins intesifs' (intensive care) where 8 patients are fighting for their lives. There is no ventilation machine, and only a couple of oxygen cyclinders. The beds are dirty and there is an overwhelming smell of urine in the heat of the day. The patients' families have to buy everything from medication to bed sheets. Gloves and masks are reused by the doctors, and in short supply.

Five of the seven patients currently in inetnsive care have tetanus. An infection that is completely preventable by a vaccination programme. The 14 year old boy who arrived this morning, already has developed severe rigidity, trismus and spasms and increasing breathlessness. What was his exposure to tetanus? Circumcision, 15 days ago.

So far, it's been exhausting speaking and trying to understand french all the time. I'd be lying if i said I was enjoying it! I've become this quiet little girl in the corner who doesn't really speak. Although I can understand a lot more that I can speak. When someone asks me a question I'm just embaressed by my inability to make comprehensive sentences!! It's really quite frustrating because the medicine is fascinating, with signs of such advanced disease that one would never see en Angleterre, but I'm concentrating so much on understanding the french I'm kind of ignoring the medicine at the moment. Therefore, many of the doctors must think that medical students in England are stupid and know nothing!

(hopefully more updates to come... sorry, i don't think my English is very "couramment" because i'm kind of thinking in French!)