Hospice Jinja

Wendy and I spent the day with the Hospice Jinja team. The day started at 8am and ended at 7pm. We started with team devotions, a discussion about patients seen on the Friday before, and then carried out some teaching with the team in the form of a quiz.

One team went to the north of the Burgosa region for 3 days. Wendy and I went out with another team to Inganga, about an hour from Jinja on the road to Kenya. 

We visited a health centre, hospital and then 8 patients - all within very rural communities. Even the 4x4 we were in struggled with some of the dirt tracks we traversed.

We met Christopher and his wife (one of our patients); he had been diagnosed late, as most Ugandans are, with prostate cancer and was paralysed from a spinal cord compression. He welcomed us with such a big smile and was thrilled we’d visited with the team. He had pain from waist to toe. The team didn’t have the right drugs to give him but we managed to find something that would help. We met three men in total, all diagnosed late with prostate cancer and spinal cord compression, meaning they were bed bound and being cared for by their families. 

We saw a 36 year old woman who has 3 daughters, the youngest being only 1year old. She has HIV & AIDs and anaemia. I couldn’t bear to take a photo of her because she was so emaciated. We provided iron tablets and the team will follow her up in 2 weeks.

We visited Namassi who’d had surgery to her face for maxilla cancer, but it had reoccurred and was distorting her face causing her pain, and was also finding it hard to eat. As well as painkillers the hospice provided her with some porridge. Her young grandchildren were fascinated at the Musungos visiting!

We’re back out again tomorrow for another day on the road with the team.