travelled over the equator almost to Tanzanian border

A long drive on very bumpy roads across the Equator to visit a private midwifery centre and a government hospital.
It took several hours to get to Masaka then we left the tarmaced road and went for over another hour before we reached St Mary maternity and general nursing home. Its the only one for miles around so is quite busy. The midwife that runs it is qualified in the UK some years ago when they did parts 1 and 2. But she is the only qualified member of the team other than a general medicine doctor. There are a team of so called midwives which are in fact TBAs . I wasn't able to spend too much time there but I can show you some pictures and say that it seemed like a happy place.

this is Bonny our driver at the equator

St Mary's maternity home

wicker baby scales

labour room

After leaving here we went just 30 mins down the road, bumpety bump!! to find a level 1V health centre that mean they have a maternity unit with theatre and are able to perform C/S and offer a full range of A/N P/N care.
Well ..... on arrival we found no one to show us round other than the care taker, maternity did have 5 p/n women and babies but not a member of staff in sight.   We had a chat with the women and checked on there babies, had a look at the labour room and ventured off to see if we could find anyone else. The general ward was just the same, full of patients with IVIs and some looking quite poorly but not a member of staff apart from the caretaker.

maternity building level 1V health centre

labour room

We did find out from the care taker that a doctor lived on site and he could contact him if he thought he was needed.

My lunch today was
interesting. road side fast food. Pulled up and had loads of people all pushing what they had to sell through the car windows. I had liver pieces on a skewer plantain cooked over a fire and a bottle of apple juice and some hot ground nuts. Not bad actually!

Returned to hotel about 6.30pm I have a day off tomorrow to write final report.