Arrived in Jos

Blog entry … Tuesday, Feb 26

By Ray Rogers, CEO National Center for Health Care Informatics, Montana Tech, University of Montana.

We arrived in Abuja, Nigeria (the Capital city) on an 8:00 pm flight from Amsterdam. Flying over the immense Sahara Desert gives one a true sense of the size and uniqueness of the African Continent. Upon arriving in Abjua, our first sensations were of the heat, the ever-present dust in the air from the Sahara winds (Harmattan), and the smell of smoke from thousands of fires used for cooking and as a source of light.

Our hosts from the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria provided us with very nice accommodations for the evening, and we headed off to Jos (Plateau State) the four hour drive. Along the way, I witnessed great disparity in wealth, including extreme poverty. The roads were packed with cars laden down with people and possessions, many people walking and thousands of people along the roadsides selling their wares. I was struck by the immense amount of plastics (bags) littering the roadsides and fields, trash that cannot degrade and continues to remain in the environment.

Upon leaving the busy city of Abuja, we entered the rural villages on the northeast drive to Jos. Along the drive, villagers had set up public markets to sell bread, fruits, yams, tomatoes, onions, peppers and other items. Occasionally we would see small schools with children dressed in colorful uniforms. The slow-paced villages with thatched-roof mud huts or tin roofs are in stark contrast to the busyness of the large cities of Abuja and Jos.

We arrived at 12:30 pm to a wonderful welcoming reception at the Our Lady Of Apostles (OLA) Hospital in Jos. Everyone we have met has been extremely welcoming and has made us feel right at home. We immediately launched into our Safe Passages training which George and Bob will describe. I provided an overview of information technology and what we were attempting to accomplish by connecting OLA hospital to Montana Tech and other parts of the world to support their clinical and medical teaching needs.

The interest and response was overwhelming. They can not wait to have access to better IT tools, and welcome the opportunity to work with our team. I also worked closely with Dr. Sam Inyang to access the OLA network. By the end of the day we had completed a successful video session, using their wireless Internet, between OLA and Mike Kukay of the National Center for Health Care Informatics at Montana Tech. Over the next few days, we will begin to conduct more advanced tests. We have made arrangements for increased bandwidth for tests on Thursday and Friday morning (Montana time).

Our evening ended with a wonderful cocktail hour and dinner in the courtyard of OLA complete with entertainment. We ended the day quite late and look forward to busy and productive Wednesday.

Wednesday am …. I started my day by getting to sit in on a cesarean section and witnessed the delivery of a healthy baby boy. Dr. Bob Scanlon conducted the procedure before a group of medical residents. We are now teaching and getting ready to conduct another IT test. More later…..

Comments from Dr. George Mulcaire-Jones:

Ray did a super job describing things. I would add a couple of notes - it really is great to have Ray and Bob, who really are first class persons and great teachers.

Second, one always wonders "do our efforts make any difference?" It was gratifying to hear the reports of some of those who have participated in past trainings. A number of them said how much the training has improved their maternal and newborn outcomes. They are now using a bag and mask for newborn resucitation, and instead of having asphyxiated babies with neurologic compromise, they are having babies who are nicely resucitated. They have good outcomes with the soft cup vacuum extractors. They are passing down the training to other midwives and physicians and elevating the standard of care.

We see "Safe Passages" posters in the labor and delivery wards - and the awareness that all women should have a safe birth has defintely taken root. Hey ... thanks for your support ... more later!