September 16th 2016 (A little Late)

 

Our last day in Bjumba was spent debriefing the team, key points discussed included

1) Lack of time dedicated to palliative care due to all of the teams other duties.

2) Other clinical teams being unaware of palliative care input

3) Lack of recording current activity and ensuring that the MDT discusses current patients

4) Further Training needs and ongoing support

We were able to make a list of suggestions to take to the medical director (le Dieu) and agreement was made over the following

1) Being excused from the 7am daily whole staff meeting once or twice a week to hold their own palliative care meeting.

2) Use of a palliative care team stamp to highlight PC involvement.

3) Acknowledgment by Le Dieu that the time needed to do an appropriate PC consultation was much longer than a standard consultation.

More contentious issues included

1) Ongoing CPD and further training as he believes this is a central issue to sort which is a shame as the team is so keen to develop the practical implementation of their skills further. Le Dieu is on board and uses the successful HIV management programme as a template for how Palliative care will develop over time. Perhaps we are slightly more impatient for this to happen.

Other successes of the week include:

1) Grace has made it home and the four other patients we were particularly involved with have a plan of action and are now much more comfortable.

2) The palliative care team very quickly noticed and then followed our holistic style of palliative care management including compassion, gentleness, affection, touch etc.

IN other news, conversation at last nights suppers was difficult due to exhaustion and a monsoon like downpour - very noisey (we have video footage), it is dry this morning but there is more rain forecast. We are awaiting the arrival of Jean Claude who is taking us out for a typical African lunch - whatever this may be!

VIctoria and Jane managed a swim in the rather cloudy outdoor pool, hope they don't live to regret it (unusually they kept their mouths closed!).