Two weeks left !

Our journey is about to end, only two weeks left. The autumn is coming and the weather is getting colder here, so we don’t mind to come back home and start the summertime in Finland!

The training experience has given us a lot of things that we can use in everyday life but also in nursing care. Now we understand more what multi-cultural nursing really mean and we can face patience from different culture with more courage. And we think that we also have a better change to work abroad in the future if we want to. The local attitude towards life has also given us something to think about; relax and enjoy your life more. What comes to our skills in the English language, they have improved a lot. Now we can use English with more courage and cope with even more difficult conversations. 


We have understood during the attachment that Finland is very good place to study. At the Rujeko Clinic we had an opportunity to meet two girls who were also studying to become a nurse. They were very amazed that we can do our practical placements in another side of the world. In Zimbabwe the nurses have trouble finding a job after graduation. The studying is free, but after the graduation they need to work a year for free, to cover the costs for the government. That doesn’t sound so good to us...

 Most of the nurses that we met were very nice and hard workers. They didn’t have much information about hygiene that we have. They were always washing their hands and not using anything to dry them. Also they used double cloves and the same disposable aprons for whole day, with the patience and on the tea brake, which was pretty disgusting. Speaking of brakes, the nurses had one tea brake that lasted 30 minutes and the lunch break was an hour, a little bit longer that we have used in Finland. But the nurses here have lot of responsibility and they really like they job and taking care of the patience.

 What we will miss the most, of course the weather and the super-fresh fruits, are the children. They are always so cheerful and happy. We have realized the importance of volunteer work and how you can make smile to someone’s face even by small things.

Visiting at the Rujeko Clinic

We have had an opportunity to visit in the local clinic next to our Activity Center where we are normally working. Clinic is called Rujeko clinic and it is responsible of taking care of all the people in Dzivarasekwa, so there is lot of  patients in different ages during the day. It is a quite small and includes three wards which are:

-maternity 

-baby

-outpatient ward 

We spent one day in each ward during the three weeks.

The clinic is run by nurses and they have lot of responsibility because there is only one doctor working in outpatient ward once a week and that’s why nurses prescribe and give all kind of medicine for example opiods to patients. We had to applied for permission (because you must have a lisence to work) from the city of Harare to only visiting and touring at the clinic but like the Sister in Charge said "you will learn by doing" so our visits there were more working than touring.

Our first time at the clinic was in the maternity ward. Pregnant women come there for examinations and get to know how far the pregnancy is and is there everything okay with the baby. We were calculating their due date, taking their blood pressure and weights. After that were doing examinations for mothers tummies to know the babys position and for example find babys back to listen the heart beat.  

Women also come there for delivery and if there is something wrong with the delivery they can stay couple days at the post natal ward for observation. Nurses and midwifes are assisting the labor and there is no doctor at all in that ward. There are about ten labors in a day and most of the local women are still delivering at their home. Most women in labor were very young and there were no father-to-be around. 

After visiting in the maternity ward we went to see the baby-clinic ward. New born babies come to the clinic once a month so that nurses can see are they developing normally. First we were examining two week old babies. We took weight, height, checked the reflects, eyes, skin, navel and looked if there is anything not normal. Most of the kids received extra nutrition from the clinic because they were suffering malnutrition. The nurses introduced us the local immune schedule and we were also giving the vaccines to the children, like polio and measles. 

Our last visit was in the out patient ward. First we checked the equipments for in case of an emergency, like oxygen, adrenalin and laryngoscope. Many of those important equipments were unavailable. After that we were following the nurse when she was taking the patients in. Most of the patients were very sick, having a fever, cough and pain in their body. Nurses sent only the urgent cases to bigger hospital. Usually the nurse prescribe the same package of medicine for every patience; paracetamol, ciprofloxacin, amoxcyllin and vitamins. Afternoon we spent in the HIV testing and counselling clinic. About 20 people come for the test every day, five of them are usually positive. Part of them were older men and also young couples came to do the test together. Before testing they got counselling of HIV and Aids. The pre-test-counselling was information about disease, treatment and what happens if the test is positive. The counselor was especially telling that if you got HIV it doesnt mean that you are going to have Aids. And also, after if the test is negative, you still need to go testing every three months. 

The visits in the clinic, especially in the HIV- counselling, were very interested. It was also good to know what kind of work nurses are doing here in Zimbabwe.      

Sistahood-club

Every other Thursday we have held lectures for girls about health and issues related to young woman's growth and life. The club is called the "Sistahood-club" and the slogan is "My health is my wealth". The local girl who is studying social work is helping us with the group. We have two groups. One for the girls who are 10-12 years old and an other for the 12-16 years old girls. With younger girls we had talked about hormonal changes, hygiene, periods, children rights and sexual abuse. For older girls the topics have been dating, contraception, hiv and aids and sexually transmitted diseases. In one group we have about twenty girls and lessons have been a one-hour length.

The topics are important but also not so easy to discuss with girls who are in that age. In this culture young girls don't have an opportunity to talk these things with their parents or in schools so these kind of groups are very important to them. We are trying to create a relaxed atmosphere in the groups that they will feel comfortable to open up and have confidence to express their own opinions. The only thing that has been taught in the school is HIV and the girls have lot of information about that. It is also typical for the culture that girls go married and have children in teenage. Thats why girls should not be encouraged to have sexual relationship too early, but rather talk about importance of education before starting a family.

The picture from the wall of primary school