Life here has been good as far. At the beginning I was few weeks in countryside in Mpigi improving my somathic skills and after that I came to see how psychiatric nursing is working in Ugandas only psychiatric hospital – called by national referral mental health hospital Butapika.
In Mpigi I got to familiar with immunization and outreach work. I spent also some days in general ward and hiv clinic as in theater and outpatient department. Time in Mpigi teach me a lot of local daily living. Culture got lightly familiar as also nursing in health center too. Time in Mpigi showed me what kind of is nursing without a lot of machine and equipments. ’Third worlds’ problems was able to see clearly especially in hiv clinic.
Outreach work what I did in Mpigi was happening at evening time after morning shift. We were travelling to more rural areas head to different schools and communities. There we made a lot of immunization as also local nurses tried to do some small prevention against STDs. Days in here might be long and full of work – or not 🙂
My background as a student in Finland is practical nurse and I’ve been working in psychiatric hospital in Finland. In here I made some small compearing between finnish and african way to do psychiatric nursing and also tried to understand how psychiatric and mental health care is running in here. The difference is huge compearing to Finland. Example in psychiatric hospital in here are 500 beds but typically 800- 1000 patients at the same time. In admission ward can be over 100 patients and 2-4 nurses. Psychiatric diseases are same than in Finland instead of epilepsy which is treated in psychiatric hospital also. Working culture is bit different than in Finland and there are just one reason for that.
In my free time I have visited in african seremony, in forrests, laid down on the pool, made a safari in queen Elizabeth national park and had a holiday in Zanzibar. Card games, books and music as a walking has been also a good ways to spend time. Life in here is quite simple and weather is enjoyable.
Now I am looking forward to coming back to Finland. Still I am sure I will visit in this country again and I am gonna miss some things from here. Nature is amazing and somehow I am gonna miss african time which means you are always late a little bit… is it good or not is absolutely other question 🙂
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