Saturday

This morning we were taken to the new health centre where the Rwanda Palliative Care Hospice organisation team had come on their day off to show us their new building.

Peace (nurse) and Emmanuel (Driver) who Victoria had met last time are still there and still funded by an American Charity, they are supported by a team of volunteers, Theodosie (manager), Magnus (Psychologist) and 2 Doctors (Olive and Vincent – Who we met at the training) who take it in turns to be on-call – this week it is Vincent. This makes up the entire palliative care home team for Rwanda!

Our first visit was to a 38 year old man with metastatic osteosarcoma, he has responded well to morphine for his cough, and his phantom limb pain is being helped by amitriptyline. His biggest problem was an aphthous ulcer post chemo and we were able to advise a treatment strategy for this, we also advised on his morphine dosage as it was a little strange. (See pic)

Our second visit was to a 42 year old man with end stage brain tumour, with significant symptoms caused by raised brain pressure, we were able to suggest the use of dexamethasone and demonstrate ease of administration by dissolving it in a small amount of water, as well as adding in paracetamol to his morphine for headache.

We are now back in the hotel and for the first time this week we have treated ourselves to dessert as we felt we had earned it, again no pic, it didn’t last long enough! We are spending the afternoon in the café writing our report before flying home tonight!