I've had better weeks

I wrote this blog a month ago (around 20th October) and couldn't decide whether to post it or not but it was how I was felt at the time so here it is.....

Sometimes I think that my skills and experience are simply not noticed, recognised or utilised….its been a frustrating week so far. The bureaucracy of external funders, the fragility (or lack of) local health systems and skills, overload of so called expert consultants doing piecemeal and (in my opinion) sometimes unsustainable work, The lack of processes at every level. Sometimes the workload is mundane (I write a lot of letters) and the constant learning curve to understand things in a totally new context can leave me exhausted and sometimes dejected. You think you are getting somewhere and then there is some big setback. Might sound a bit familiar (friends in the NHS?)?

To add to my work and other frustrations this week was when on my way to work I discovered an injured dog in the road, with taxis and podas driving around it. I see human suffering and misery everyday which is hard enough and so I have learned to blank out the suffering in the animal kingdom, but not on this morning. With the help of a press-ganged passerby, we gently pushed the dog out of the way of oncoming traffic. It clearly had a head injury and broken bones after being whacked by a car once or maybe two or three times? It was 8.30am and according to the person working at the house next to the road, the dog had been there for some hours, but he had left the dog in the road to suffer and had done nothing. He got the dog some water (I kind of gave him no choice) and I went to find my lovely and resourceful neighbour Joe. I had no idea that we were literally about 300 yards from an animal rescue place, but Joe did and they stretchered the dog there, sedated him, examined him and agreed that there was nothing that could be done for him. A British vet was there, who had arrived 2 days before to volunteer her services for 2 months, brave woman. She concurred with the local vets diagnosis. I put my hand on his head and said goodbye.

Last Sunday I had a long chat with a rather good looking young man who sells locally made bags outside one of the cafes (Bliss). His grandfather makes the bags and he sells them for a living. I’m going to buy a bag next week from Ibraheim. He has no hands, being one of the many in Freetown who were victims of the war atrocities. There are also people who were so badly beaten that their limbs no longer work. Every day I am confronted with a row of wheelchair ridden young people (mainly), begging for food outside my office. Sometimes I give them money, sometimes food. But often I also walk by. I buy medicines for the lower paid staff in the office and I often bring in food. Government drivers earn approximately £45 per month and that’s sought after position in a country with mass unemployment. I haven’t even started to talk about the Freetown slums or the opportunities (or lack of) for the young, especially if their family cant afford to send them to school. People somehow manage to live by selling cucumbers (and a massive array of other things) on their head’s, so its hard to justify getting so upset over a dog in this context. But then again all living creatures feel pain and suffering.

I’m pretty sure that things are improving, we are slowly seeing this in the health sector, especially after the launch of free health care, but sometimes the enormity of the task is quite overwhelming. I have every respect for my Sierra Leonian colleagues, who simply keep going, despite the slowness of progress and the complexity of everything. This makes my frustrations pale into insignificance.