first day of work today and I survived!!!!yay! Went in totally scared after hearing what then hospitals are like but lucky for us it was a very quiet morning with only 3 women in early labour so we watched 2 babies born,a c section and went to the prem unit.
Let me paint you a picture of the labour ward....you walk in and hold your nose for the smell hits your stomach so early in the morning, then we get changed in the nurses office together with the windows open for all to see outside (however dignity doesnt exist out here so they dont think anything of it),care to not drop our clothes on the dirty floor we enter the ward....2 rooms,the first has 4/5 is single 'rooms' although they only have 3 walls and a kinda curtain which is meant to be the delivery rooms although we didnt use them at all today,the second room has 10 beds (5 down each side in a row) there are no curtains between each bed and the women all lay on their beds naked or half covered with a kanga (looks like a thin tablecloth) screeming away as there is no pain relief at all...one lucky lady who had a fever and lots of pain was given 2 paracetamol! so to nurse these potential 10 women are 2 nurse and us students...the baby is delivered (not in the english way-just pulled right out as soon as you see the head) the women is given so cotton wool and pushed out the bed to walk/hobble to post natal while we follow on behing with the baby. The emergency c section for a lady whose baby was in distress took 2 hours+ while they waited for a doctor from another part of town to arrive,then she WALKED to theatre along the path outside (me following with her drip and catheter) just wrapped in her kanga which didnt really stay on,when we got there we were still waiting so she just knelt on the floor (dirty,muddy floor) until she could go in....wont even begin to describe theatre on here (apart from the fact the windows were all open so anyone from outside could watch it all) but they baby made it (goodness knows how!!!)

They like to induce the women if they get bored so all of a sudden everyone will be giving birth at once (fun for the 2 nurses on duty and the reason why we get so involved!)

Managed to not pass out at the size of the canula they use but am not looking forward to doing it myself (never seen anything so big)

Walked into town after an exhausting 6 hours,note to self take water to work tomorrow, got soaked on the way in the biggest rain storm i've seen but it only lasted 15 mins and had stoppped by the time we got to the hotel for lunch!

more again tomorrow maybe...

lots of love xxx