Getting Ready to Go

We are all set to go to Uganda.  Well, not really! We have our flight and a schedule, and have been collecting supplies, setting up this website (thank you Brandon from Zellous Design) and meeting with others who are interested in this work.  

Now we are entering the push to create and refresh slide decks on hemorrhage and bereavement, finalize housing and transportation (which never really gets finalized until we are on Ugandan soil) and solidify our schedule with our Mbale nursing leaders.

This trip our schedule revolves around these goals:

1. Get to know our Mbale nurse leaders better by spending a day doing a workshop with them.  We will explore their roles in Birth With Dignity and cast the vision for saving mothers and babies while improving bereavement care during a loss. We will spend a great deal of time with these leaders throughout our stay as our relationship since 2017 has consisted of 5 a.m. Skype sessions and we want to know them better.
2. We will teach nurses and midwives at Mbale Regional Hospital through lectures and simulation, while also spending time on the labor and delivery, postpartum and neonatal intensive care wards observing, mentoring and modeling what we teach.
3. We will meet with the administration of the hospital to update them on all that has taken place since 2017 and establish goals for the program and hospital there.
4. We will go with our nursing leaders to outlying areas that refer patients to Mbale Regional Referral Hospital.  They will most likely do the teaching in these areas to begin educating those throughout their region, in hopes of improving perinatal care in Uganda.

As always, our hope and prayer is to promote the dignity of life in childbirth, and the dignity in death.  We know that the key is our nursing leaders in Mbale desiring to change the maternal and neonatal death rates in their beloved country, while raising the standard of bereavement care with any maternal or neonatal loss.  Thank you for partnering with us by supporting us in a myriad of ways. Although our shoes will be heavy with red Ugandan soil, yours are just as important, whether they are in shoes or boots covered with snow.