HBB Training at the Gisenyi District Hospital

Today we start our first day of training at the Gisenyi District Hospital. I have visited the Gisenyi hospital on each of my trips to Rwanda, and it has become one of my favorite places. Gisenyi itself is a beautiful place, and I have always enjoyed my time in this area of Rwanda. That is not to say that I don't enjoy the other places I visit in Rwanda, but I have gotten to know many of the people at the hospital and consider them friends.

We start, as always by going over the flip chart and the action plan.

Training at Gisenyi will be a little different because not all of our learners understand English completely, so we have to readjust our training to allow Yvan to translate. This was particularly hard for me being the "wordy" person that I am..... I had to learn to be concise! (Don't get your hopes up, friends, this is a short term change! I'm an old dog....don't do well with new tricks!) Poor Yvan, he has had so much to put up with from this team of lady trainers!

After we went over the flip chart and action plan, complete with the exercises of telling the stories about the babies being born not breathing, and the one of them holding their breath as long as they could....we gave a demonstration of the scenarios.

One of the things I have come to love about my friends here in Gisenyi is their curiosity and wanting to know everything! Today was no exception.....they began firing questions at us about things way beyond the scope of this program, such as neonatal assessment, resuscitation, and on and on. Not being one to miss a teachable moment, we tried to comply with their requests. Sara came up and demonstrated, trying to keep somewhat on our original topic, how to assess an infant while you are drying, stimulating and helping them to breathe:

One thing led to another, and they were eventually asking about giving compressions and administering drugs......sigh. I finally, with Sara giggling a little in the background, had to explain the scope of the HBB program and that it was designed to work with other neonatal resuscitation programs and that it really just targeted that one minute after the baby was born. Back on track, we moved along to the rest of the training.

After the demonstrations, Yvan explained that we would break for lunch and then the afternoon would be spent with them practicing scenarios so they would be ready for the testing tomorrow.

We broke them up into three groups after lunch and began our practice scenarios. Two of the groups were placed fairly close together so Yvan could translate for those who needed it. Age comes with its privileges....Pam and I got the group that spoke pretty good English! And now the fun really began! Who knew that these folks would throw themselves so completely into this?!? We had some real actors here when it came to playing the mommas.....they did a pretty thorough job of being the birth attendant as well.

And so we spent the afternoon practicing, laughing, learning, and having fun......because we remember the things we enjoy and try to forget the things that are painful. Sorry all you former PALS instructors from a place I try to forget.....there were no tears here, just laughter, teamwork, communication, and, yes, fun! Given what we saw today, I think these people are going to rock their skills test tomorrow!