Orphanage and Hospital Visit

The hospital
Mothers waiting to go feed their babies.









This is the House of Moses, an orphanage in Lusaka. Last three photos.

Today we visited the House of Moses orphanage and the Lusaka Hospital.

The day started with me being part of the B&J sandwich making team of four. Activity starts early since our 6 bunks are in what is the living room and people go through here to get their breakfast. But I can hide behind my mosquito netting until I HAVE to get up, which is earlier on sandwich making day. We had some runners who got up early to run.

We visited the House of Moses first, no photos were allowed inside and we had to take our shoes off inside the door. This orphanage serves children from birth to 18 months. I believe there are two others in this organization that serve children up to 12 years, after which they hopefully can be placed with relatives or new families.

Half our group, including me, went to the toddlers first. It was a moderately sized room with cribs lining every wall. We each took a child and played with him or her, I took "Woobie" and once I picked him up he didn't want to be put down or even sit down. So I stood up and we played games from this position, he took to dropping a toy and I would lean down so he could pick it up and drop it again. Anytime I started to sit down he would object mightily so I just cuddled him and played standing up. We ended by humming, cuddling and swinging back and forth. When the other group came I had to hand him off to one of our group so he wasn't upset. This room is bright and the kids are looked after by very happy, caring staff. There were about 20 toddlers in the room.

We switched groups and went upstairs to the infants. We were told we could just pick up any baby. I picked up a little boy and held him close to my heart, the whole time we were there he never woke up and I just held him close. The head nurse was at her desk up in this room, there were two other helpers in the room. There is not enough staff but those there seem very caring. The children are so sweet but it is so sad to see all these orphan babies. Some are just dumped off and found and brought to the orphanage. Right now the adoptions are being stalled by the government because of problems and inconsistencies in the adoptions recently. Neither Zambians or foreigners can adopt at this point. The nurse said we make a difference even though we are there for a short time. We left donations at the orphanage of blankets and other necessities.

We ate our P&J sandwiches on the way to the hospital. Now this hospital is the premier teaching hospital in Zambia. It is pretty unbelieveable, dirty and just terrible. You do not want to get sick in Zambia. The corridors are open to the air. There are broken windows and laundry hanging out of the windows. Clothes on the line outside the hospital.

This government hospital is free, BUT in order to be treated you must bring your own bedding, food, soap and towels and a person to care for you. The doctor prescribes the medicine, the caretaker must go to the pharmacy to purchase the medication. They bring it back, the nurse comes in and asks where the medicine is and gives it to the patient. Some people have no one they can ask to come with them nor can they afford the medication so they simply don't come in to be treated.

Because Charity, one of our MWB friends who lives in the house where we eat, is head of the neonatal unit we are allowed to visit this portion of the hospital. She wears the nurse's white dress and cap like our nurses used to wear. She is a very caring and professional person working under difficult conditions. Unfortunately, the day we visited she was at a conference but we were able to tour.
There are 51 babies today, usually there are more like 80 with not nearly enough staff. We walked in and there were mothers sitting around nursing their babies.

Before going in I read a sign on the wall that said,"We are short staffed and any assault on staff will be prosecuted."

Back to the babies - As we entered the grounds of the hospital there was a building called the Mothers' Shelter, where the mothers stay after giving birth. They stay in this house and go over to the nursery to feed their babies for 30 minutes and then the mothers go back to the shelter until it is time for them to come back. One baby had a sign above his crib "dumped baby, please feed me." The picture of the women sitting on the ground are mothers waiting to go feed the babies.

All the babies are in cribs lining the room wrapped up with heavy blankets. They keep it very warm. Charity had told us about how the electricity went out over the weekend and the incubators, of course, couldn't be warmed.

After we saw the mothers and babies we went into a middle room between the normal births and the ICU unit. They had us put on white (clean?) coats and we were allowed, a few at a time, to go in and see the ICU babies. When our group went in there were 3 people hovering over a baby, after a moment I realized they were trying to save his life. We had no business being there and most of us just left. Every 12 hour shift 2 or 3 babies die. We saw preemies just struggling to live. It was pretty tough to be there.

We came back to the center room and piled the table high with our donations for the nursery. That was good. Someone took a few photos here and I will get ahold of it at some point to show you. Since we weren't allowed to take photos someone had to run and get their camera for this photo.

One of the problems the hospital has is that it doesn't pay well so nurses go to private hospitals and the government hospital remains short staffed. Another problem is that nurses go to other countries to be trained and many stay there.

This was the day we also exchanged our American money for Kwachas. It is all in bills and 350,000 Kwachas equal $103 dollars approximately. We also had a chance to e-mail home, one of two opportunities.

I ordered a blouse and skirt, pj pants (relaxing pants) and a wrap around skirt from Mavis. We went to the fabric store (mostly filled with Indian Indians buying fabric) and chose our fabrics. My clothes are beautiful and she lined everything but the pants. I wish I had about 3 more pair of pants.

We ended the day by going back to the house to eat and sort out the tons of supplies everyone had brought. There is a room where we were able to sort out the supplies into different piles.

We had a short meeting. Kathy and her husband, Philip, brought in one of the children, Carol Zulu from the CRC who was very ill. They were keeping her with them for the night. Kathy, MWB founder, and Philip rent a room here when they are in Lusaka.

My thought for the day was that through all the sadness of the day I was very grateful for those caring people who did so much with so little to care for these babies. I am extremely grateful for the love I've always had from my family and friends. We are lucky people!

The next day we went to the compound community of Chazaga. Next time .....