Jumanne

Today we finally got to return the rest of the equipment we’ve worked on the past week. Sometimes it’s hard to remember who exactly dropped anything off since there are so many different departments. This morning we met with the head doctor to discuss the major problem in the labor ward. With our multimeter, we tested most of the sockets in the labor ward and have concluded that instead of the ground wire hooked to ground with a 0 voltage reading, it’s also connected to the live wire. This makes the circuit live at ALL times. Not only is this a safety issue but the equipment can easily fail as well as the blow out the light bulbs. The head doctor was apparently aware of the problem but could do little to fix it since the company who renovated the building keeps saying they’ll come back to fix the circuit. We wish we could do it ourselves but it is just not a reasonable tasks since I know very little about wiring an entire building. Our next big project was to tackle two more pieces of equipment from the antenatal ward: an incubator and an electronic scale. The scale just needed some new batteries and a tape job so that was ready in minutes! With the incubator, we had asked what was wrong with it and the nurses replied it never worked since being delivered. After switching the male plug to one we could stick in our testing socket, it miraculously started working! I am guessing that for the most part, the staff just doesn’t know how to operate it since there are no others in the department. I spent the day cleaning it because it had basically been used as a storage unit for who knows how long. We tested the incubator out all day, figuring out when the alarm sounds and what the settings are. The biggest challenge now will be to train the staff that can use it. It may seem silly, but even the simplest of machines won’t be used unless of course the user is completely comfortable with operating it. Since this is the only incubator I think it’s really important to ensure they start using it.