I arrived back in Ilula Monday morning. It is great to arrive back in Ilula after a long series of flights, including a 5 hour delay for our first flight which resulted in missed connections and rebooked flights.  But in the end it all worked out.  

 Our group is a mixture of very experienced volunteers at Ilula, some who are here for the first time, and everything in between.  This is personally my ninth time coming on the trip.  Many thanks to Randy, Gary, and Ken for all their work and commitment making this amazing even happen every year. It is also great to see so many of the staff here who we have come to know and respect over the years including Dr Saga, Dr Sovelo, Dr Benjamin, Tuli, Anna our cook, Frank, and Mr Kikote the hospital administrator, and many others.  We have also made some new friends this year including our wonderful new cook, Immanuel, and social worker, Happy.  They do amazing work with extremely limited resources and it is always an inspiration to work with them.

 Friday evening we took a thrilling ambulance ride into Iringa with a patient who needed to be transferred to the regional hospital.  The ambulance driver was amazing, speeding down the highway over speed bumps and around slow trucks.  The patient did well and we got a good chance to see the big hospital.

 Next week we will present the series of wonderful lectures and skills workshops that everyone has spent the past few months preparing.  This will be the seventh year we have presented the 2 day Ilula Minnesota International Healthcare Conference.  We expect over 100 healthcare professionals from across southern Tanzania to attend, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and administrators.  The teams will develop quality improvement plans on the second afternoon to take back to their hospitals and implement.  In our spare time, we are busy making sure everything is ready for the conference.  Hope all is well at home.
Below are pictures of morning report and checking a child for malnutrition.

 John K 



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