The Miracle of Birth

ak. A beautiful baby boy was born today at the RVH. While the rest of the hospital lazily sauntered through a quiet Saturday, inside the small maternity ward, a young mother was in painful labour for over three hours. When the baby finally released itself from the womb, it had inhaled placental fluids into its lungs and was unable to breath. The medical staff had to act quickly and resuscitate the boy who had already fallen into unconsciousness. Within 15 minutes though, the fluids had been expelled, airways cleared, and the boy was already proving he would be the next member of the Lake Nakuru Gospel Choir. Another successful day at the Rhein-Valley Hospital.

A birth the Kenyan way

rs. A birth - the Kenyan way. You arrive at the hospital a little before midnight and wait for the baby to be born, at 5:45 h in the morning the baby appears and in the afternoon you go home. The family members then came and greeted the couple.

Classroom without teacher

rs. After four hours of office work in the morning, I reached the hospital around noon. Askari said that the teacher was here, probably to discuss the issue with the meals of the schoolchildren (see yesterday's post). So I went to the school to meet him there, but when I arrived at the school the teacher was absent. I visited the children and took the opportunity to draw a small cat in one of the notebooks. :) Then I returned to the hospital. In the day-clinic we had a lot to do because we get more and more patients of the Lord Delemares Farm. As the nearby St. Mary's Hospital of the Catholic Church is quite expensive (a normal birth costs 10,000 KSh, in our hospital it's only 450) many come to our place.

Two births and one eating shelter

rs. Today two childs were born, a boy shortly after lunch time and a girl later in the afternoon. So we were quite busy today at the Rhein-Valley Hospital. I explained to the crew how to adapt the bed of our grandma because she is not able to go to the toilet during the night. Her husband is so grateful that we take care of her day and night and that he can go to sleep in the night. Generally, we have more patients at the moment, because it is quite cold and wet and several children caught a cough. They have not learned to properly use a handkerchief so the germs propagate. Today we also finished the banks and tables so that the elderly people have a proper place to eat and have some shelter, especially in case of rain.

Riots in Kisi

As we heard from our laboratory assistant Caroline, who lives in Kisi, there were heavy riots there and 11 people were killed. Shortly before midnight she sent me an SMS and asked for help. I advised the police and finally they came, but only with four agents that couldn't spread a group of 300 youngsters who were straying through the village and put fire to many houses. It is still boiling among the population and it seems to be only a question of time until unrests start erupting again.

Video reportage on Mama Matata's work

rs. Today we drove to the hospital ground to make the last arrangements for the installations of the toilets. Today I also realized a live video reportage on Mama Matata that we will also publish on this blog as soon as it is cut and finished. I filmed her explaining the hospital's activities. We started at the main entrance, then went to the ambulatory, laboratory, operation theater, storage room of the medications, book-keeping department and the sanitary rooms. We could also film the birth of a child. We just arrived some seconds before it happened! I never watched a birth in my life. The mother is fine and 3 minutes later Mama Matata made a little interview wit her. Then we watched the situation of other patients, among them two women with Malaria. We also called Nairobi to get the latest news about the container, waiting for the last papers to be released. Then about 2o IDP's came for their food rations; they couldn't make it yesterday. At 4 pm we rushed home but couldn't escape another heavy down pour.

Little malaria patient