HOPE Africa, who partially sponsors the care centre here in Hawston, also works with St. James Mission Hospital in Mantsonyane, Lesotho. St. James does a lot of maternity care, and since my nursing experience is mostly in labor and delivery, we all decided it would be great for me to spend some time there. I am so excited for this opportunity to learn from the doctors and midwives at St. James, and I'm frankly very curious to see what labor looks like over here! I think it is going to be a totally different experience. Mantsonyane is VERY rural. There is no NICU for premature babies. Epidurals aren't an option. They do cesarean sections at St. James, but only as truly a last resort, when all other options have been exhausted. In the US, my entire life (or so it felt like at the time) as a labor nurse revolved around the fetal heart rate monitor strip. At my hospital in Richmond, computers showed us our patients' strips from every room and from the nurses' station. If I went to the bathroom during my shift, I would ask one of my colleagues to watch my strips until I got back. That is the way we roll in America. I will have to tell you more when I actually get there and experience a labor, but I am quite sure this will not be the case in Lesotho. In fact, I'm not sure they will have electronic monitoring equipment at all, and now I'm really wishing I had gotten Carolyn to teach me to use a fetoscope.
St. James also works with satellite clinics around the Mantsonyane area, because as rural as the hospital is, there are villages in the surrounding mountains that are even more isolated! I've absolutely loved the community based nursing I've been practicing in South Africa, and I hope I get to experience some of the satellite clinics in Lesotho also.
To learn more about St. James and its work, check out their website! (Side note: I'm pretty sure that former YASCer Jared's fingerprints are all over this website.) http://www.hospital.tacosa.org/About%20Us/about-st-james.html
In the midst of my excitement about going to another country in southern Africa and experiencing my nursing specialty in a very different environment, I have to admit I'm having some conflicting emotions about this change of plans. Mostly because it means saying goodbye to Hawston two and half months early. Suddenly I'm down to my last 5 weeks working at Overstrand Care Centre, I am running out of time to check off my must-do list, and I am really starting to freak out about leaving the people that I've spent the past seven and a half months falling in love with. I know Lesotho is going to be awesome too and I can't wait to get started there. But before I can do that I have to come to terms with the fact that my time here is actually ending, and I really am leaving quite soon.
Until then, I'm going to keep enjoying the work I'm doing right now (Martin is back after his much deserved long vacation, and I have never ever in my entire life been more excited to see someone than I was to see him!) and growing the relationships I've made here. This weekend I plan to soak up what might be the last of the real summer weather in the Western Cape. Look out beach, I'm not done with you yet!
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