Last Day of Hospital Visits!

On my last day of hospital visits, I went to see the KCMC/Mawenzi students. Since I saw them the previous day at KCMC, I though it would be more useful to go to Mawenzi today. When I got there, my students were telling me about how they were having a hard time finding a 6V 20W halogen bulb for a microscope. They checked the stores in Moshi but couldn't find it. I wish they had told me about this bulb earlier because I knew where to look! Moshi has a great facility called Health Care Technical Service (HCTS), http://hcts.elct.org/. It was founded by Lutheran Germans and its purpose is to fix/maintain medical equipment for the hospitals in the area. All the Germans left and it's interesting to see how HCTS continues over the next few years because now it is being run by local Tanzanian engineers. One of them is actually and EWH BMET program graduate! (More info on the BMET program: http://www.ewh.org/programs/bmet-training-program)

I sent a few of my students to HCTS to look for more specific parts when they asked me for help. You might get lucky and find parts that you need because HCTS imports an assortment of bulbs and fuses and other supplies that can't be found in Tanzania. I really love this work shop. I came here last year to work on a Vitals Monitor and the people still remembered me from then! They were so happy we stopped by that they insisted we take a picture!

Had I known that these students were looking for the bulb I would have told them to come here days ago! Luckily, we still managed to get get the bulb and put the microscope back into use even though it was the last day.

While today was my last day of hospital visits, it is far from my last day of work. I still have to tie together loose ends for the end of program conference (on Saturday) and finish up all the paperwork for Duke Engage/EWH! Ah!!