Together with Oli’s support we managed to do some good workshops for the cleaners and staff about general cleaning and handwashing. We developed posters for all sinks to give easy guidance and we even went on a long trip to Phnom Penh to get dispensers with alcohol gel, affordable through donated money from Oli’s friends and family. It was a very satisfying moment seeing all dispensers fixed to the walls and being used (of course not as often as we would like) by staff, patients and visitors to clean their hands. After 6 weeks we had a round of refilling the dispensers already. The alcohol gel is now bought by the hospital and refilled by the pharmacy.
Oli also sprayed bins to indicate the different use.
We also had visitors, one of them was Kath who came up from Phnom Penh to do some workshops for the midwifes.
On the maternity ward I got insights of laboring women and freshly newborn babies which is always exiting and heart warming. Unfortunately during my time here we also had still births and maternal deaths, usually due to eclampsia.
We also raised seedlings from little seeds of the magic 'Olifera' tree and gave them to the hospital kitchen to use the nutritous leaves for the patients in future.
Mary (an education VSO volunteer) introduced us to the prison in Sissaphon where I facilitated three health sessions covering relationships, sexually transmitted infections, contraceptions and condom use, for male and female prisoners and I educated about smoking. Especially the woman prison was poorly to see. Inside the prison the 120 female inmates who have done from stealing to killing are crammed into 6 cells. Some are pregnant, some have children and those 18 children run free around the prison complex without education or other stimulation. Nobody takes care of them. Fortunately Mary and a handful of other dedicated NGO’s try now to improve things there for the prisoners.
I had the great opportunity, to also learn more about Thmar Pouk and to see more beautiful and real rural Cambodia.
I also made some new friends, this is Sophat whom I worked with on the pediatric ward.
After 4 weeks being in Thmar Pouk, I also went up to Stung Treng to see my friends and family again for the last time.
Last time we were in Siem Riep, Oli dragged me to cycle to the Butterfly farm with him. It was a hot day and it took nearly 3 hours each way, but it was really worth it.
Saying goodbye wasn't easy...
Ingran has also finished his VSO placement, so we had another little goodbye do in Phnom Penh.
On my way back to the UK, I popped to Switzerland, Lausanne, where Antje and John live now. It was absolutely stunning there. We also went camping for a few days.
Now back in Oxford, live goes on.
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