First impressions

So I've been here for 5 days now and these are my first impressions. As we drove from the airport to the hospital in the dark I noticed that there were no lights on in the houses beside the road. Then in the distance there was a group of lights which turned out to be the hospital, basically it is one of the few places in the area to have electricity and is also one of the major employers.

A few things happened that didn't surprise me; firstly I got a really warm welcome from everyone at the hospital, from the doctors, the nurses and all concerned. I went straight to clinic on the next morning and saw quite a few really sick people including children and babies. The hospital was very clean, although some of it is brand new and really nice other bits look very old and in need of some TLC. I have a huge amount to learn here- some of the medicine is different but all the processes are going to take a while to get used to. Everyone here seems to work really hard.

Perhaps more interesting are the things that did surprise me; firstly there were empty beds on the wards, quite a few of them, which I have never seen in the NHS. The other was that all the staff and some of the patients rely on mobile phones for communication, even if they have no electricity at home they charge the phones at work or another communal places and make very short phone calls to save money. Another was that the hospital has a tennis court- not in great condition but a tennis court none the less.