After just one week, we are way ahead of schedule thanks to our unusually motivated team 🏆
Indeed, Jackie and Poeletso have offered to come into paint during the night shift when there are fewer patients to better ensure that they minimize disruption to the unit.
Despite the good progress, we all came in to work today with a vague sense of dread at the sight of drizzle that could easily deteriorate into rain. And rain = roof leaks, with filthy asbestos-tainted water threatening to drip at unpredictable sites on our paintwork...as well as on our semi-conscious patients. Luckily it didn't go further than a few puddles today...
I have become proficient at abusing the carrying capacity of my micro-rental car (cruising down the main road with 3m planks and doors sticking out my windows and boot), but I needed professional assistance for the partitioning. Cliff, a talented builder/carpenter/handyman from Tshemba foundation came to my rescue, bringing his brother's double cab for transport.
Before we could go on, making another room inaccessible with our construction (i.e. transforming the cramped and useless "stock room" into a triage consultation and procedure room), I first had to re-organise all the stock in the main room to ensure that the health staff could still function.
A cleaner came in to help wash down some old disused medical drawer sets and I dug through the piles of stock and put it in order.
We also did the following: -- Second coat of paint in the resus room
-- Remove the old vinyl flooring from resus (a painful process of chipping away at it with a hammer, where each blow disintegrates a few cm^2 into a thousand rotting fungus-infected projectiles 🤢)
I am now trying to get quotes for a self-levelling epoxy resin flooring...lets hope we find a massive discount as we don't have funding for the entire area 😢...
I am now also looking online for some equipment, as the local shops are quite rural here.
--a code-controlled cabinet for our schedule 7 drugs
--slam-shut security doors to protect our staff and patients from criminals coming to "finish off" rivals being treated in our facility
--examination bed for triage
--adjustable height stool for doing urgent surgeries in resus room
--autoclavable wall jars for our suction
--desks and chairs for our triage bay
--washable opaque PVC curtains
More tomorrow...