6-13-13: Last Day in DRC

I realized earlier today that I never wrote a blog entry for yesterday. Oops. Well, nothing exciting happened. We flew from Muanda to Kinshasa and arrived in one piece, and that was just about it.

The plane that took us back to Kinshasa

Today we got back to work, with an early morning meeting at the Embassy. We had an outbrief with the ambassador, and I presented the medical piece, as the “medical mission lead”. I presented an overview of Kitona Health Zone, using the surveillance data that we heard in academics during the mission, and then touched on the kinds of patients we saw and the health assessments we did. It went pretty smoothly, but what I neglected to say was that while I noticed that the MoD had solid programs and policies in place, they were obviously having problems with implementation, based on what we saw. Oh, well.

Out-briefing the ambassador

After the out-brief with the ambassador was the press conference, and LTC McCullough asked COL Lesho to be the medical representative on the panel, as the highest ranked military officer. He did his piece well, although I would have answered some of the questions a little bit differently than he did. But that’s what LTC McCullough wanted, and it was his show.

The group before the press conference

After a quick lunch (of pizza) we headed to Camp Kokolo, which is the main military base in Kinshasa, to visit the hospital. This was the site of MEDFLAG 10, a joint-service medical mission in 2010, and also a site that LTC McCullough neglected to take us to during the pre-deployment site survey back in March. The hospital is bigger and has a larger patient volume than Kitona, as well as better equipment (as a result of MEDFLAG 10), and today LTC McCullough’s rationale for not taking us there was that they get a lot of attention from NGO’s, etc, and we would have been lost in the shuffle, whereas nobody really goes out to Kitona. While this is undoubtedly true, it would have been nice to see Kokolo in March, when we were trying to find a site, instead of being herded to Kitona. It would have completely changed the dynamics of the mission, with how many days we would have been able to work (not having to take days out for travel), where we would have been staying, and even who we would have brought on the mission. It’s kinda frustrating to get actual confirmation of being used to further someone else’s agenda.

The cardiac ward at Kokolo

Anyway, after that we swung by the Thief’s Market, where I bought some more touristy things, and then we had a bit of downtime before the reception at the deputy ambassador’s house. It’s a very nice house, and he invited quite a few medical people that we got to mingle with. I talked to the head of the PEPFAR (Presidential Emergency Program For AIDS Relief, a program started under George W. Bush) program in DRC, the USAID chief in DRC, the CDC chief in DRC, and several other equally important people. It was quite an evening, and I’m sad that I didn’t remember to bring my business cards.

               

 Tomorrow we have a long(ish) day of doing not much, and then we hop on the plane in the evening to begin the epic journey back home. I can’t wait (sarcasm).