Blog by Anne

Yesterday was really great. After  breakfast, we took a walk around the hospital grounds greeting people

Even the sick patients picked their heads up and gave a wave, really nice people. In one area, we found a visiting Italian ophthalmologist. Outside we saw a young woman sitting with a very young boy. They sat silently very patient. It became obvious that both her eyes were clouded over and she was blind. We watched them leave shortly afterward as her surgical requirement was beyond the scope of the team visiting. I took her hand to let her know there were people around her

I was excited to see the new anesthetic machine in its box and supervised the opening of the box and its transport to the operating room. One of the boys twiddled a knob and it purred into life.. eager for action.The plug to the mains had to be changed but that happened quickly and Vanessa and I ran through the checklist to put the Glostavent officially into action.

To my great amazement not only were the shelves still intact that we constructed in 2013 but they were now enclosed in glass sliding door cupboards and filled with supplies and labelled.

The emergency equipment that I placed on each anesthesia machine was still there. I guess now we have to work on the standard of anesthetic.

As we now didn’t have to go digging for equipment we took the opportunity to roam. And took a short walk of a” few “ Km to the river, then up the river by boat to Lukpo .

This is a holiday weekend in Benin. The villagers were preparing a communal feast and the headman was very welcoming, took us around showing us his hut and walking us around the village. Eventually, we were surrounded by playful children and Louis got them singing and dancing and they followed us to the boat waving excitedly to us as we motored back up the river.