Christmas day

Following the water shortage (see the previous post) came the FLOOD! Someone had left a tap on in our guest bathroom so when we got back from a Christmas Day swim, half our house was under water! Fortunately, many hands make light work and things were cleaned up in time for Christmas lunch for 24 people! Who said rural Christmases are small? We had to move the lounge furniture out onto the verandah to accommodate everyone!

There was one other piece of drama - a woman with placenta praevia (placenta over the opening of the uterus) and bleeding arrived just before lunch. We don't usually like taking placenta praevia to theatre here as things can go badly wrong, but we had little choice. Although the baby was stillborn, the mom did well, something we're really pleased about!

Submitted by Ben.

A new water perspective

These pictures are not posed! On the weekend before Christmas (already a distant memory) we experienced THE BIG DROUGHT. A power line fault had brought the pump at the dam to a halt and the water tanks at the hospital ran dry. For nearly 48 hours we had no water at all - either at the hospital or at the accommodation. So this is a genuine fetching-water-after-work picture. Our eyes were opened again to the hardships our patients experience as part of daily life. Not only is it a huge job to fetch water everyday, but the quality of the water was horrendous! We were extremely grateful when the water returned on Christmas Day (though for the accommodation complex it was another 72 hours wait as a valve had been closed by "someone who is against us"!)

Submitted by Ben