Wednesday June 1st: What a great start. Waking up and looking out the window we were treated to a view of which the night before we could only guess.
After the view, the first thing I noticed was that the food on this trip is not going to be the same fare that we had last year Breakfast had many options and followed a more traditional western style breakfast (see the smile on Paulie’s face).
After breakfast we headed down the mountain to Bwindi Hospital to meet the staff and start our planning. The objective was to start the exchange of information necessary for the implementation of the ITW methodology at the “nearby” clinics. The definition of “nearby” is a bit of a misnomer in that some of these clinics may require two or three hours to reach by car or bota, and of course with the paucity of vehicles, many more hours on foot. The clinics we will be visiting refer their sickest patients to the Bwindi Hospital.
We started off by touring the hospital and then held a staff meeting. Instantly, we knew this place is special. What they lack in material goods and state of the art equipment, they make up for in terms of tenacity, caring, and creativeness. The place exudes warmth. The hospital has implemented many plans by which they were able to reduce maternal death rates to approximately 3%. This fact is very encouraging as it suggests that if we can identify and get more of the expecting mothers to the hospital who really need medical care during delivery, the outcomes will be very good. The picture shows a brilliant maternal director, Elizabeth, holding a newborn baby.
As already mentioned, transport to the hospital is extremely difficult and borders on treacherous when there is significant rain which make the roads almost impassable. This problem represents a major problem in that transportation may not be possible when delivery is imminent. In anticipation of these difficulties, the hospital has created a hostel for delivering mothers, so that they can come and stay well in advance of (up to two weeks before) the actual delivery. 
Relatives are responsible for feeding and caring for family members while the family member is at the hospital. The above picture shows a “kitchen’ where cooking takes place at BCH.
Overall, we were thrilled with the meeting. I spent the rest of the day working on software while Paul did the meeting report.
