As a qualified doctor, nurse or midwife or as a medical student in these fields, you will take part in the everyday routine at the hospital by aiding the medical staff. This volunteer program is especially suitable for:
Daraja Mbili Public Hospital is a newly established medical clinic located only 15 minutes from the White House, where you as a volunteer will be accommodated during your stay. Currently the clinic is consisting of three main buildings with a few different departments, but due to the big demand of medical attention in the neighborhood, an on-going construction to expand the clinic is in process. As mentioned, the clinic has a few different departments. As it is a big burden in most of the African continent, infectious diseases is a big part of any health facility here in Tanzania. In the Daraja Mbili Public hospital the work usually consist in treating and examining patients for HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, STD’s (sexually transferred diseases), typhoid fever, diarrhea and many others diseases. As the patients typically have a hard time recalling the beginning and origin of the symptoms, the work of diagnosing the diseases can be quite difficult. Previous experience with these types of tropical infectious diseases will therefore be a big advantage!
Besides infectious diseases, the hospital has an obstetric department with a labor and delivery sections as well as a post-delivery section. Very few women in Tanzania attend regular checkups during their pregnancy, and the time of birth is often the first contact with a health facility. In the obstetric department, the doctors and nurses try their best to assist the many patients with the limited means they have available. The hospital has only one delivery room with three beds next to each other, which often can be occupied by women at the same time. After delivery, the women are taken into recovery where the health personal attend to them as best as they can. However, the limited means and personal usually means that the women are sent home quite soon after delivery if there is no acute complications to be seen. The women attend regular checkups after birth, where the children are being weighed and offered the appropriate vaccines. However, as the personal is few and the patients are too many, the women are often waiting in vain for hours only to be sent home in the end of the day with no checkup.
For the moment, the hospital are preparing an surgical room to perform the most basic and acute operations, which they have referred to other health facilities in the past. As you see as well in the picture, the room is very basic and the personal is forced to make use of the few means they have available. However, if you have surgical experience and wish to expand your knowledge, you have the possibility in this hospital. The few departments we have mentioned are just few of the areas, the facility is dealing with. As it is located in a poor area of Arusha, the many thousand residents in the area around the hospital often seek help and treatment here first. Therefore, patients suffering from traffic accidents, burns, domestic abuse victims and patients suffering from non-communicable diseases (diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome) will appear daily and the work in the clinic will differ from day to day.
As a medical worker, you will aide and assist the medical staff at the hospital in the different departments. Depending on wish and experience, the volunteers will be placed in a department that suits them and will be guided through the daily routines by qualified staff. In this placement we are looking for both qualified doctors, nurses and midwifes as well as students enrolled in any of these educations. However, we are looking for volunteers who are so far along in their education that they are able to actively take part in the treatment of patients. We are looking for volunteers, who are mature and can act on their own without putting themselves or the patients of any risk. At the same time, we are looking for volunteers who also are able to know their own limits of what they are capable of and who are wise enough to say no or when they are put in a situation beyond their knowledge.
It is important to keep in mind, that working in a hospital in a developing country usually is very different from working in a hospital in a developed country. As the hospital has much fewer means to work with, alternative solutions are often part of treatment plans. We hope, that you as a volunteer can help contribute to with useful solutions, bringing new ideas for better hygiene or maybe come up with a better charts-system.
As you can never predict which patients will enter the hospital, you never really know what you will arrive to work and find, especially in a country like Tanzania who is facing a great deal of health related issues. As medical worker, you will assist and help the staff with basic assignments as cleaning burns, cuts and scrapes and to help proscribe and pass out medicine as well as more complicated assignments like assisting during delivery, help asses trauma patients suffering from traffic accidents, help treat victims of domestic abuse and assisting at surgeries. Due to the limited staff, you will also help guide and teach the patients how to prevent diseases and explain the treatment plan of current ones. We understand, that the language barrier might make communication difficult but since you will always be working along side with the permanent staff, they can help you out with translations.