Orientation: Lighthouse (1)

Orientation at Lighthouse HIV/AIDS Unit

Lighthouse is the HIV/AIDS unit/centre in Lilongwe, treating and supporting patients with HIV/AIDS. Lighthouse is an organization funded by a number of Non-Governmental Organisations and International oganisations (NGO/INGOs). Lighthouse sees over 200 patients per day, these include women, children and men.  The Unit opens 8am to 4pm.

My orientation at Lighthouse was worthwhile and a valuable experience, both thought provoking and sobering experience.  I take my hat off to all the staff from the gardener to the Director of Lighthouse.  They are a truly astounding group of professionals, who really cared about their patients. In my professional opinion, the patients received first class care and attention.

I spent 5 days at lighthouse on orientation moving from department to department learning and participating in the care giving of patients.

First day of 5 days orientation started been welcomed by with the PA to the Director of Lighthouse followed by handover to the Training Department.  The training Co-coordinator, Ruth talked me through the work and ethos of Lighthouse. Followed by a tour of the compound, and departments, after our tour Ruth put me to work, while she then went off to put together an orientation program for me.

Day 1:

·         Tour of compound and departments

·         In reception

·         Lunch

·         Measuring: height & weight

·         Nourishing

·         Pharmacy

·         Close

I started at grass root level, booking in patients (using a touch screen computer), attending clinic. It was also an opportunity of practicing my Chichewa greetings, which needs improving. I entertain them with my somewhat muddled Chichewa greetings some laughed, others are confused and cannot understand why a black woman, a Malawian as they perceive me to be cannot speak Chichewa, I am considered a Malawian all the time. It is natural you see a follow black person and automatically assume they are of that native country.  I also encounter the same problem when I visit my home country of Ghana. However, it is slightly different in Ghana, it is the assumption I speak the Twi, which I do not! Twi is a dialect of the Akans, my mother tongue, it has become the national and widely spoken language in Ghana/Accra. I can however, hold a conversation in Ga, which is the dialect of the people of Accra, Osu-Labadi people, and understand my father tongue of Ga-Ada, also another dialect which is very similar to Ga.  As I child living with my grandmother in Ada, I spoke Ada (Ga-Adangbe), then when my sister and I moved to Accra we learnt to speak Ga, later we learnt to speak Awe(Togolese). Between the ages of 5- 10, apart from English and good understanding of French, I spoke three dialects fluently, now barely speak one fluently! A real shame, something I must seriously rectify.

Starting from reception was a good way of seeing the process of care taking place from start to finish. It also gave me an insight of the kind of patients coming through for treatment. Apart from the odd one of two who were well dressed and appeared to be financially okay, the rest were extremely poor. The patients who came through, no surprises were predominantly women and children.  I saw young women, in their early twenties, babies, teenage mothers as young as 15 and old women in their sixties plus all HIV positive and newly diagnosed HIV patients.

From reception, I moved up to measuring of height & weight, plotting the Body Mass Index (BMI). Paulo, my instructor, instructed me on what to do.  I scan the barcode from the patient’s medical notes into the touch screen computer. He weighed and I inputted the data into the system, which automatically calculates the patient’s BMI.  The average BMI for a Malawian on the patients we measured is between 20 – 21 BMI.  The lowest BMI for an adult I came across was 17, referred for nutrition counseling support. 

I then went on to Nutrition counseling, observing the nurse counseling patient with low BMI  on nutrition and giving supplement of very rich  peanut butter, high in fat, and sugar content in a sachet. Depending on the BMI of the patient they are advice to eat one sachet per in some case up to six a day. The nurse informed me, most patients do not like taking the supplement because of the high sugar content.  I finished my first day in Pharmacy observing the dispensary of drugs.

Next blog: My day in the community.