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Susan Thomas, is a nurse from Sydney on her third mission with Médecins Sans Frontières in Soroti, Uganda. Susan has completed two previous missions with the organisation in South Sudan and Uganda – this will be the second time that Susan has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières in Uganda. Dear Everyone, I arrived in Uganda on Monday morning (19 July) to find that my suitcase did not leave Heathrow. The office has moved and so has the guesthouse since I was here last but they are still in the same area. I said hello to quite a few staff that I remember from last time and they all welcomed me back warmly. I immediately met an Australian doctor from Melbourne who has just been in Darfur (Sudan) and is now going to work in Arua on the HIV project (in northern Uganda). The next day she left and the American Dr Jill arrived. We travelled together to Soroti and it has all begun now! Margaret Ward (another Australian volunteer) is giving me a good handover and introducing me to many people. There are two nurses, one from France and one from the States. The other doctor is from the Philippines and the Logistician is Dutch/Ghanain. Everyone is very supportive and helpful and the team seems to work well together. We are quite busy juggling a busy Therapeutic Feeding Centre for severely malnourished children, two Outpatient clinics for the displaced people and we are running mobile clinics for displaced people who are living in camps all over the district. There are about 30,000 displaced people in Soroti but this has decreased from over 100,000. The hospital is extremely busy with the halls packed with patients and crying babies and the staff struggling to look after them, short of supplies of course. But that is the norm in Africa. Malnutrition is the big problem now and it is getting worse as food stores are empty and there will be few crops as fields were burned by the LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army]. The rainy season didn’t really come either…so we anticipate an increase in the needs any time soon. We are already seeing tiny babies who look about 3 months old but are really over a year old - they are not getting off to a good start! Of course many have malaria and/or pneumonia too as they have almost no resistance at all. Uganda has really moved ahead since my last visit. Everyone has mobile phones, including the cooks and cleaners and watchmen. There is much more traffic clogging up the roads (which doesn’t really mean improvement) and a huge super centre that wasn’t there before. Soroti is a lovely little town, sort of an African Tidy Town with all the shops painted and very little rubbish and we have electricity! We are actually living in town and have a phone too. Unfortunately we don’t have tukuls [traditional grass/mud huts] but live in a house and I am sharing a room right now. The Australian nurse is staying on to fill in for a nurse who is going on leave but I will be the Field Coordinator as of next week and I am slowly taking on more and more responsibilities. I haven’t heard much in the way of news from the outside world. Iraq has drifted into the background as other pressing problems take precedence. Bye for now, Susan [July 24, 2004]
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