Labor Ward Bears Fruit

This morning it was back to normal life, patients who had accumulated in plenty during the celebratory pause, team issues, kids, homework, cooking etc. (Did I mention that Jack played with a pocket knife during some of the Ambassadorial hooplah and gashed his hand, which we wrapped up with the scarf I was wearing over my shoulders until we could put in three stitches about half an hour after the guests departed?). When I arrived at the hospital I met the mother of one of our premature babies gallantly trooping her small baby and bag of possessions from the old ward to the new as Maternity officially shifted. Pediatrics is flowing onto the floor and out the doors of the old ward, but that will be more complicated to move, so we are going bit by bit. By the the time I finished seeing patients at 1 pm there was a mother in labor, so I told the staff to inform us when the first baby was born in the new delivery room. Sure enough, within the next two hours, that mom “produced” as they say here. So while the interns hung out with the kids Scott and I zipped back down on the motorcycle in the late afternoon to present a blanket that friends of Annelise had sown for patients, a hugely luxurious and clean and colorful soft covering.

What a fun time: the mother was delighted, proudly aware of her status as first to deliver in the new place. It turned out that she was a Kwejuna Project mom, someone who was identified as HIV positive through our PMTCT program and she and her baby received the life-saving doses of Nevirapine to prevent transmission of the virus. Even more fun: when we greeted her, she displayed her strapping male infant and told us with excitement that his name was, of course: Scott (pronounced Scotty). So Dr. Scott and baby Scott had their picture taken together with the new blanket and the beaming mother. Who knows, after all the attention yesterday, there may be a run on the name Scott (which is not, shall we say, popular in Uganda, in fact virtually non-existent). We thank God for yet another unnecessarily fun affirmation of the new ward.