It’s a slow Sunday at St. Gabriel’s: The roosters are crowing, the goats are bleating, and the staff are milling about. The hospital’s director, Dr. Kiromera, stopped by our new home, the Zitha House, to say hello and to talk about some the goings-on at the hospital. I was glad to report on progress on our own projects at the hospital, since the past two weeks have been especially productive as we’ve settled in and become acclimated to St. Gabriel’s.
To offer some perspective, Teresa Yeh first reported on the technologies we’ve brought with us to help make the work of the staff here more comfortable. These include:
- Bililights: Blue LEDs that treat infants with jaundice by causing bilirubin to break down
- Dremofuge: Low-cost centrifuge based on a dremel for urine and stool analysis
- IV DRIP: Low-cost, automatic, and mechanical IV regulator that limits the volume dispensed
- Length Board: Portable, light-weight device to measure the height of infants
- Morphine Dosing Clips and Invertabottle: Add-ons to a liquid morphine container to allow patients to accurately receive the target volume
- SAPHE Pad: Disposable pads to estimate the volume of blood lost during delivery
Over the next few weeks, Tara Slough, Teresa, and I will further look into implementing these technologies. Our adventures throughout the hospital have revealed that St. Gabriel’s already has state-of-the-art centrifuges, rendering another device unnecessary. They also have a set of older phototherapy lights. However, they seem to especially need a morphine measuring device in the palliative center, along with an IV drip monitor in the pediatric ward. We also had an opportunity to talk to a physician from Ndi Moyo Hospital in Salima, Dr. Mindiera, who was interested in these technologies and wanted to learn more about them. I’m looking forward to going to Salima next Tuesday with Tara and Teresa to demonstrate what we’ve brought with us. It should be a great opportunity to see what other hospitals in Malawi are like, and I’m super excited to visit!