Malawi Clinics

Practice nurse Amiko Hippisley remembers working with limited resources in a rural setting near to Dedza in Malawi last summer:

“When we were working in Kaphuka Clinic (rural hospital) last July, some of the doctors did an outreach clinic about 5 kms away (for patients who can’t walk the distance to the clinic).  They did consultations, diagnosing & prescribing of medications all morning.  It was only on the return to the clinic that it was realised that the SP malaria tablets had been decanted by one of the staff into an old antibiotic container, and so all the patients who’d been prescribed antibiotics that morning had actually been given malaria treatment instead.  The clinic staff were quickly advised about not decanting medications into different containers, and if necessary to do this, to label the containers very clearly!  (Better this way round than the other as a lot of patients have malaria anyway.)

There is such a shortage of tablet containers and when we helped out in the pharmacy, we had to wrap up bundles of 5 malaria tablets into torn up bits of scrap paper.”