So remember when I mentioned those stages of culture shock we were told about? And how we were all still in the Euphoria/Honeymoon phase? Well…… Depression finally hit. Don’t worry! I’m in Acceptance now, but for a while there we were all feeling pretty homesick. I think it was just the huge transition from our sheltered homestays last month to living more or less on our own now. A lot of small things just kind of piled up: the boiled drinking water here tasting like soap, the heated water for showering being filled with ashes, the overall downgrade in food, the lack of routine, the hospitals not trusting us with English, struggling with Swahili all day at work, etc. And then the thief who took Angela’s purse and we all kind of hit a low point. That’s probably why I haven’t really felt like blogging lately—everything would just be a complaint. The only good thing was that it seemed to hit all of us at once, so nobody was left alone and depressed. We could all complain together. But it’s gotten better! Charlotte talked to Mama Makerine about the soap in the water, so now it just tastes like metal from the boiling. We’ve gotten used to the food and the ashy showers. And Miguel (our engineering professor) came to work at the hospitals with us, so we fixed cool things like anesthesia machines to prove ourselves to the hospital staff. And as for the Swahili….. well, let me just say that I’ve been having a really hard time doing my Costa Rica Spanish level placement test because I can only think in Swahili now! Anyways, I apologize for not updating a whole lot since the move, even though I do have a lot better Internet access now! I’ll try to catch you up on what’s been going on lately.
Miguel Day
So the only machines we have been told to either not work on or be extremely careful with are X-rays, Ultrasounds, and Anesthesia Machines. Guess what the hospitals wanted fixed? St. Elizabeth: first thing, ultrasound and anesthesia. Ithna Asheri: only thing, anesthesia machine. Greeeaaatt. Luckily at St. Elizabeth we were able to busy ourselves with inventory and helping our fundi (technician) Jonas with random small equipments. Ithna Asheri, however, was kind of another story. They were very skeptical of our abilities, which I totally respect; I wouldn’t want some random punk kids tinkering around on the medical equipment in my hospital! But still, it was kind of annoying when the only thing they trusted us with was to “service” 2 oxygen concentrators. Here in Tanzania, without oxygen concentration meters for testing, “servicing” just means cleaning out layers upon layers of dirt and dust. We happily took the task though, and the lack of basic cleaning supplies here actually made it a lot more difficult than it would have been if we had had access to a vacuum, some canned air, Clorox wipes, or even just paper towels. The paper towels here are literally just a roll of contruction paper. Great for homemade Valentines, not so much for sopping up soggy dust bunnies. Oh, and another thing about Ithna Asheri? (It’s a really sweet little hospital, don’t get me wrong! We enjoy working there because of the great location near town and the fact that we have complete freedom over our schedule) We have our own office, kind of. We have to give the key back at night because it’s the freakin TB Unit. Yeah, like tuberculosis TB. The TB patients come in after hours so as not to infect other patients, and they are seen in the TB Unit. Smart move for the patients, but nobody seems so worry about us. I guess we have shots?
We are now ventilator experts!
After a pretty slow week, we were really excited to have our engineering professor, Miguel, coming on Friday. He’s been making rounds to all the hospitals in Arusha, while Ben is doing the same around Moshi. Miguel is super experienced and an awesome troubleshooter. First, we had him meet us at Ithna Asheri to check out the anesthesia machine. We had previously diagnosed a supposed “leak” as an open safety valve, but we hadn’t yet looked for the cause of the ventilator not turning on. We suspected a bad power supply. After a lot of struggles because we lacked proper tools (people who stayed in Arusha weren’t provided toolboxes, because technically we could go into the city to buy new tools) like wrenches and needlenose pliers, we finally got the valves exposed and opened to diagnose the leaking safety valve. Was it defective? Or was there just a pressure buildup down the line causing it to open? While Laura and Charlotte attacked the ventilator, opening it up to check the power supply, Miguel and I looked at the valve. There is no way I would have been able to get that thing open on my own—I had no idea what it was supposed to look like, let alone how to get all the seemingly seamless pieces apart. With Miguel’s help, however, we got to the very inside and found, to our dismay, a ripped rubber seal. Thing was, this isn’t just any rubber seal. It had these weird fibers made into the rubber, and the metal plate that held it was permanently attached. What does that mean? To stop the leak, an exact replacement made for this piece of equipment will be needed. And here in Tanzania, that just isn’t possible. We took some pictures and put it back together, mashing the seal in as best we could. Maybe someone will be able to send a replacement from Ohmeda (it’s an American company). Back on the ventilator front, after an extremely tedious struggle with the screws and housing, we figured out there was, in fact, nothing wrong with it at all! But why wouldn’t the darned thing turn on? Well, American plugs need adaptors here, and the stupid adaptor was broken! Yeah. They’ve been using manual ventilation for months all because of a tiny little $3 piece of plastic and metal. An easy fix, and the anesthesiologist was ecstatic to have a working machine again. Well, almost working. It can still be used with the open safety valve, though that’s obviously not ideal. Nothing we could do for that problem though. :/
Miguel, Charlotte, and Jonas re-install the ventilator.
After lunch, we walked to St. Elizabeth to go take a look at their anesthesia machine. Once again, ventilator issues. This time, it turned on but wasn’t pumping air. What was it, a leak? Back to the horribly tedious process of unscrewing the housing! I actually worked on taking apart another torturous housing (one for a heart rate/EKG monitor) while the others operated on the ventilator, but I saw how many screws came out of that thing. A small piece of tubing was suspected to have a leak, but no hole was found. After taking everything apart, cleaning, and reconnecting, they tested the ventilator again. Tadaa! It worked. We still aren’t sure what the problem was, but it’s solved now. Always a nice feeling! The monitor I was working on was having problems with the blood pressure. It always stopped at 143, where it should be getting at least 180 if Laura, our guinea pig, is as healthy as we believe. Leaky pump? Yep. Nothing we could really do about a rip in the rubber pump seal, so a similar pump is now on our shopping list.
We ended up working really late that day with Miguel (and Jonas at St. Elizabeth), and didn’t get home until 7 pm. But it was so worth it! Both hospitals really needed help with these machines, and they’ve been using them in a semi-working state for so long now. It was great not only to help them restore vital equipment to working order, but also to finally have them realize that we can help, even if it took showing off our “supervisor” for them to see it. Thank you Miguel!