On the 25th of February I will be going to Benin in West Africa to work in an eye hospital as a student nurse. This is where you can keep track of what I get up to.
Patients pay 1500 CFA (£2) for a consultation, they register at this window, give their name (or a version of it, some times its tricky to find patients’ records as different names are given each time), their ages; loads of patients’ don’t know when they were born so most ages are guessed, the place they come from is also recorded but mostly its the region or the country then there is ethnicity and occupation, nearly every female occupation I came across was given as ménagère.
Eye testing, every one gets it done before they are seen by the doctor, some times the alphabet is used some times a capital E shape and you point in what direction its showing; for people who can’t read. 65% of the population are illiterate, that goes up to 77% for females, but it could be more than that with the patients at this hospital as they were mostly from poor villages.
Injection in to the eye. yuk
Patients have had there anaesthetic eye drops, they will have lidocain and adrenaline injected around and behind the eye before surgery.
Back in Parahou we put the thermometer in the sun to see how hot it really was, it wasn’t there for long before I took this. Then we cycled to the monastery just outside of town, yeah I got sunburnt.
Youssouff doing his thing
Yousouff is performing a cataract operation, he’s been working at the hospital for a while and his trained as a nurse but also to do cataract surgery. Between him and the doctor there are about 20 performed a day from Tuesday to Friday. That blob of yellowy stuff at the bottom is the cataract that has been removed then a lens will be put in place. The eye will be bandaged up for the night with antibiotic cream on it then checked the next day. Patients can then leave the hospital with a months worth of eye drops and are asked to return in 3 months for a check up. Most don’t come back; some of these people have spent more on travel than the actual operation.
A tonometer is being used to find this guys intraocular pressure, pressure over 20 is indicative of glaucoma. This was a task I could actually perform after a bit although every one else was way better at it.
The theatre. Its all pretty basic, but really clean. For most operations gloves aren’t used but they are pretty slick with the non touch technique. Patients are only in there for about 10 minuets, as long as the operation takes, they are lead in, lied down, the surgeons do their stuff and then lead out again to rest in the shade under a mango tree or one of the 60 beds.
post op!
