Anyone with experience in the medical clinic in Tanzania?

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Permalink Reply by Theresa Taylor on January 31, 2009 at 1:30am

I think it really depends on where you end up being placed, I can say that you will love the experience but that it will probably be really difficult or an eye opener. I was not in a hospital or clinic, I was in a school, but several people at my homebase who I became really good friends with were nurses in the hospital and a couple of girls were working in a clinic that offered pre-natal care and such.
The girls working in the pre-natal clinic liked what they were doing and had some interesting experiences. They enjoyed meeting the ladies coming into the clinic and felt they made some good personal connections.
I know that in Moshi there are two hospitals, one is slightly better than the other, it is called St.Joseph's and is privately run by nuns rather than government run. That one had difficult conditions, but much better than the other one. The lady working there really enjoyed it and although the doctors and nurses did things much differently than she would, she felt she contributed to the hospital.
The one nurse at the government hospital said that conditions were very difficult, there would often be three to four women to a bed, no sheets on the bed, buckets of feces under the bed. There was no tape to tape down IV's so they had to use the stickers from the IV bags. Patient's families were responsible for purchasing and administering any prescriptions needed. Patients records were scribbled on any scrap of paper you could find, were unorganized etc.

Having said all that, from all of the women I met who were in clinics or hospitals, they all said it was an amazing experience, that they felt they were able to contribute in some way (whether it was holding the hand of an old lady and reassuring her, or organizing patients records etc.). SO I guess if you are interested in doing this, I would reccomend it, even though I myself do not have first hand experience with a clinic, I do know that a trip to Tanzania will change your life in a great way. Hope this helps in some way!

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Permalink Reply by linda on March 28, 2009 at 6:07pm

Hi Jacob,
I don't know if you went to Tanzania or not ,if you did and worked in a medical clinic please let me know how it went .I was thinking of doing the same
Thanks linda

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