Kenya
Other Years
Kenya 2004 November
A visit was made to Kenya to undertake clinical benchmarking and to attend and make presentations at The Theatre Chapter of the National Nurses of Kenya conference in Mombassa. We travelled with the first Molnlycke Award Winner, Alison Herbert.
In order to cover as many hospitals during the week as possible, Lesley and Alison visited the Aga Khan Hospital in Mombassa and Kate went to the local public hospital which had been suggested by the Chief Nursing Officer of Kenya, the Coast Central Hospital. Feedback was given in each location at the end of the morning visit. A teaching session was held during the afternoon and was attended by more than 60 ward, and perioperative nurses.
We then travelled to Nairobi and spent some time benchmarking the Aga Khan Hospital, Nairobi as well as a visit to Kenyatta National Hospital, where due to an unfortunate loss of the ministry letter of permission for us to visit, the majority of time available was not able to be spent in the Operating Theatres. Teaching was undertaken in Nairobi with a small number of nurses - however, due to the calibre of the attendees, there was opportunity for much debate and discussion.
A visit was made to Nakuru, a town some 50 miles north of Nairobi, to provide contrast with the urban hospitals.(The Kenyan nurses at their first workshop had identified , that the urban hospitals have very different standards/staffing and resources to those in the rural areas). Staffing levels were acute and in our view unsafe for the volume of surgery. Resources of all types were in very short supply, and there was only one theatre trained nurse present - with four Operating Theatres in use. Feedback was sympathetically given and there was much discussion about possible options. This hospital could well be the site for a multidisciplinary team to assist with risk reduction and education - in the future.
The afternoon was spent teaching local staff and in addition there was time for comment and discussion.
We had just enough time at the end of the visit to do a game drive in the local Nakuru National Park, to see the millions of flamingos, a beautiful Masai Giraffe and a selection of White rhino, waterbuck and zebra, before heading back to UK and work!
Thanks must go to Molnlycke for supporting Alison's visit. She gave invaluable help and certainly had her eyes opened to perioperative nursing in Kenya, with hands -on!