The Delivery Suite

The conditions on Delivery Suite are hard - there are often women sleeping on mattresses on the floor and I feel awful when you have to literally step over them when doing the ward rounds.


It is quite unclean but it is so hard to keep clean with an uneven concrete type of floor as dirt just gets in the cracks. We have just swapped the wards around so actually this is now the post natal ward and the Delivery suite has a nice new floor and is much cleaner and brighter! Yeh! And sometime (supposedly June) there will be the new hospital!!

If a patient needs any drugs then the family member is given the prescription and goes to the hospital pharmacy to buy them - if they are not available in the hospital they have to go out to one of the private pharmacies to find them. This is the same if they need a Caesarean Section - the relative is given a full list including catheter, cannula, antibiotics, a number of sterile gloves, painkillers. Obviously if there is an emergency then they do have some spares but these would generally be replaced afterwards. If the patient cannot pay or does not have any attendants then again there are some spares and there are social workers who can sort out the finances. 

There is very little privacy and certainly no single rooms! The area where the women deliver has 3 couches (4 now we have moved) but there is no screen between them. The women deliver alone with no relatives with them. Spinals are given for Caesarean sections but not for much else...