Arrival of the Administration
Our third day in Techiman started like all the previous ones: Toast, Tea, instant coffee and malaria prophylaxis. After that our plan for today was to further teach the usage of the medical safety analyzer to the technicians. This was made impossible since Techi contracted a sudden case of malaria and will be out for a few days and Emanuel had to stay home to care for his sick son. To substitute we revisited the functions with the device with two of the assistant technicians, Officer and Augustin and started working on the design of the poster for the analyzer. Whenever we teach something new in the Maintenance Departments that we visit, we leave a poster presenting all information. This way, even if the staff changes, the knowledge is not lost and always readily availabe. Our work was interrupted by our meeting with the hospital administrator. We have these regular meetings during our deployment to ensure the alignment of our goals and plans with his ideas and aspirations. While being scheduled for 12 pm it was pushed back due to a spontaneous visit to the operations theaters. Chris, the administrator, wanted Arne to see the newly acquired pressured air powered suction units. This “5 minute” visit turned into an over an hour long trip including the placements of said units, organizational discussions and the clearing out of a sleeping/resting room that had appeared in an theater that is currently not in use. After over an hour our team was reunited and we could finally discuss with Chris what we will do in the next week and a half as well as the further development of the Maintenance Department. Our relative late lunch made up for all the trouble of the morning by being quite the experience. We went to a so called Chop-Bar. A makeshift roadside restaurant where local cuisine is served for relatively low prices. With the help of Samuel, our Ghanaian team member, we bought fufu for roughly 80 cents and ate it with the occasional amused look from the locals joining us. Fufu is a piece of dough made out of kassawa and cooking banana served with fish or chicken in a peanut or spicy tomato soup. There is no cutlery, so you shovel it more or less successful with skilled finger movements in the direction of your mouth. The rest of our afternoon was spent on finishing out Poster, hanging it in the maintenance department, planning for the next day and digesting 😉 This evening Chris will join us for a beer to furhter discuss things and get to know each other better. Stay Posted!Text: arne.bruns