First Day at AMPATH

Today was another very good day for us.  We spent the entire day touring AMPATH, the Moi University Teaching and Referral Hospital, (MTRH) and its associated Medical School, Riley Mother and Baby Hospital, and various other initiatives on the grounds of the complex.  It was a sunny day again, dry and warm.  We did a lot of walking, quite a bit of it outdoors and we found that our shoes and pant legs were covered with orange-red dust at the end of the day.

Our day began by meeting with the Director of the MTRHospital, the Dean of the Medical School, and the Program Manager for AMPATH.  It was very encouraging to hear their visions for the future of the various programs and to find that they were all three very much in sync with each other and with what we heard last night as well.  There was a common theme of the need to improve laboratory operations, IT infrastructure (especially around medical records and pharmacy management), and marketing and communications.  When we did our Lilly Team debrief this evening we were all looking forward to tomorrow when we get to spend more time with the leadership of the various functional areas.  I'll be starting off with the AMPATH lab manager and know that it will be another enlightening experience.

As we toured the facilities we got to see the various areas of the hospitals, med school and AMPATH clinics.  We visited the Oncology Clinic which was seeing patients today.  I'll show you some pictures of the "pharmacy" area where the physician mixes the highly potent oncology drugs in a laminar flow hood....thought to be the only one in Kenya.  And another picture that shows you where the chemotherapy is delivered....under an awning in an area just outside the backside of the ground floor.  They chose this area for several reasons - 1) because there was no room inside until they finish moving another area out and make more room for oncology, 2)they felt it was safer to have the "fumes" from these potent drugs out in the open air in case of a spill, and 3) it makes it easier to clean up the messes...usually from nausea that has not been treated well because about 30% of the anti-nausea drugs they receive are counterfeit and don't work.  If you'll look closely in that picture, you'll see the IV poles in the back left of the picture where they hang the bags of chemo and the doctors in the white coats toward the front right.

We visited the Riley Mother and Baby hospital after lunch and you'll see some pictures of this beautiful new facility that opened in 2009.  It is a state of the art maternity hospital with the capacity for up to 50 neonatal ICU patients.

In addition to the medical facilities we also got a chance to see some of the other programs that help support to total patient needs.  They have a food distribution center sponsored by the World Food Program where they distribute corn, vegetable oil, corn-soya meal, and dried peas.  We also visited the farm and the greenhouses.  The farm is one of 4 in the region.  This particular one is about 3 acres and they grow fresh vegetables including onions, kale, green peppers, cabbage, carrots, and black nightshade (which is rich in iron).  The food from these farms feeds about 30,000 people per year.  In addition to the farm, they have greenhouses where they grow passion fruit seedlings to sell to farmers.  This is strictly a money generating operation, they don't grow the passion fruit up themselves; the profit is all in getting the seedlings to a large enough stage that the farmers can plant them.  Evidently it is quite an art and they are encouraged at some of their early successes.

Our lunch today was taken at the on-site restaurant which is an beautiful open-air "palapa" as we would say in Mexico but not sure what they call it here.  We had grilled chicken, kale, mixed veggies, and a flat bread called chipati.  We also sampled some ugali....which is a starchy food the consistency of over-cooked rice...and should never be eaten alone....was good when drenched in the chicken broth or eaten with beef stew though.

We were all exhausted by the end of the day and I'm sure I'll sleep well again tonight.  Our hotel rooms are what I would call "spartan" but sufficient.  You'll see a picture of my DMZ (de-mosiquito-ized zone) and my unique security feature I fondly refer to as my Kenyan deadbolt....my room is on the very first floor just off the lobby - which makes it great for the internet connection, but I don't want some lost soul wandering into it late at night as they stumble through the lobby so thought it best to add a little reinforcement to the "twist and turn" lock that comes standard!

That's it for today - going to get some rest as I know tomorrow will be even more exciting.

Thanks for all of those prayers....so far everyone is safe, no one has had any gastro-intestinal backlash, and most have fended off the jet lag - a real trifecta!