Wrapping up the project to Tanzania

The last couple of days of this mission involved some of the most exhaustive work.

There was only one day of rain, buy it was some heavy rain which flooded parts of our way to the hospital.

For the ICU and surgical team, the challenges presented themselves as a few of the patients required extra care, whether in ICU or even needing to go back into the operating theatre.

For the non-surgical part of the OHI team, there was also a lot to do: the nurses were busy tending to the post-op patients from the week.

The procurement team (Sue, George and Russel) continued working on improving the supply of consumables, while also packing up the equipment that wasn’t used this time, either to send it back to OHI’s headquarters in Sydney, or to store it here in Tanzania for the next time OHI comes to the JKCI in March of 2016.

Friday was our last day at the hospital, and it started with a general debrief where the OHI and local teams had an honest talk about what can and should be improved, and how.

After that, there was a press conference with many local news outlets.

For lunch, the OHI surgical team invited the local surgical team for some pizza, and then there was an informal debrief of the perfusion teams.

In the evening, the hospital hosted all OHI members who were not working for a buffet dinner at Sea Cliff, a nice restaurant in the upmarket Masaki peninsula.

Finally, on Saturday most of the OHI embarked on the journey back home, while some others took the opportunity to visit Tanzania, either by taking a well-deserved rest in the beautiful Zanzibar or Mafia islands, or by doing a Safari.

As we left the hospital, it was a bit sad to say goodbye to all the beautiful and grateful patients and their families who were still either waiting for surgery or healing after their operations. We say so long and “asante sana” to our friendly Tanzanian colleagues, knowing that many of us will return here on future missions.

Please visit this blog again in the next few days as we publish a few interview videos with a few participants of this trip, as well as some more pictures. There is already a very nice collective facebook albumhere, in which many of the OHI volunteers have been posting their experience in Tanzania.