It is traditional for the New Year to be a time of new resolutions and new beginnings. Many of us resolve to do something different - lose weight (an annual one for me now!), learn another language, get to know our neighbours better, take up origami etc, etc. By the...
The daily morning ward rounds always start for me in the Paediatric Ward, and lately it has been full to overflowing. The rainy season inevitably brings out both the mosquitoes and the children with malaria. Recently we have had a number with their GE blood smear result 'fortement...
Kenya is one of the many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa dealing with a high population growth rate - about 3 percent per annum. The population pressure has lead to land degradation, soil erosion and loss of soil fertility from over cultivation and over grazing. This has not only...
In the December 2001 edition of HealthServe, Joan Hall wrote an article about the hospital she manages in The Lost Hospital - Rushere, Uganda. Kent2CapeTown is a project being carried out by a group of graduates from Kent. On 4th August, they set off in two Land Rovers on a...
In the summer of 2001, I travelled to Zambia, to carry out an elective placement at Chikankata Hospital, which is run by the Salvation Army. The hospital is situated in the Southern Province, along a 30-km turn off from the Lusaka to Livingstone road. The nearest town is Mazabuka, which...
I'd always dreamed of Africa. It was a place I'd always wanted to go to, and as a medical student I had to go there for my 'elective'. Actually deciding which country to go to was more difficult. Through family and friends I could probably have come up with hundreds...