Work

14 July 2009

It has occurred to me that even though work is the reason for me being in Indonesia it has actually hardly figured in my blog. This is partly because there are so many interesting things going on each week and partly because with my time off sick I have actually only been at the hospital for 4 months. For long term volunteers the first six months is about adaptation and learning about the culture of our partner organisation and assessing what we have to offer; then there is a review meeting with the partner that VSO facilitates to agree the objectives for the next 18 months and a work plan to achieve these. Today was my review meeting. My colleagues were very complimentary about how well I had adapted to life on Rote and fitted into the community and integrated well at work, they also were more complimentary about my Bahasa Indonesian that I was. There was a view – that I share that there is still a lot I need to learn about the organisation and that I need to continue to gather information to be able to be fully effective in my role. I now have four slightly more specific objectives to work on:-

1. To assist the hospital in participatory development of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in nursing – I want to highlight the need for improved infection control and privacy and dignity in all these
2. To improve nursing skills through formal and on the job trainings and implementation of SOPs
3. To improve the nutrition of patients diet
4. To assist in making health promotion a part of patients routine intervention

The hospital already had a few SOPs which I had been updating whilst in Bali – this is a very arduous task as I have to translate them into English – work out what is missing, outdated practice etc, think about what can be done to improve practice; within the limitations of the available resources and then translate this into Bahasa Indonesian. I have been very grateful for the help I have had from my colleagues at Worcestershire Royal Hospitals NHS Trust for all the information they have sent me in response to specific questions I have had.