Simone Ross
On assignment as a children's nurse in Uganda
Name
Simone Ross
Age
35 years old
Profession
Pediatric Nurse
Last country of operation
Uganda
Duration of mission
6 months
Previous projects with Cap Anamur:
Sierra Leone (2015 and 2017)
My everyday life in the project:
I spent most of the day in the emergency room of the hospital in. When there wasn’t an emergency, I participated in the day-to-day routine patient care.
Once things were quiet in the ER, I enjoyed visiting the infant and pediatric wards, and helping out there. In addition, together with the team, I took care of the pharmacy orders and deliveries, prepared and conducted staff training for the local specialists, optimized structures and workflows, organized materials for the laboratory and simply did what was needed at the time. That’s exactly the beauty of working on the project: it’s always very versatile and varied. Towards evening there was usually time for “office work” on the computer or other administrative things.
Once or twice a month, we made supply trips to the capital city of Kampala to make purchase things like food, materials, and medicines that we could not get in the village.
My spare time at the project:
The security situation in Uganda is very good, so you could move freely. So a walk through the village and the neighborhood, to the market or to the local pub with colleagues was perfectly doable.
Uganda is an incredibly green and beautiful country. Uganda is an incredibly lush and beautiful country. Other than that, I read a lot, listened to the radio over the Internet, and of course kept in touch with family and friends.
I particularly appreciated:
The close cooperation with local colleagues on site and the openness and friendliness with which I was received by the hospital team.
Despite the poverty and partly difficult conditions in the country, I found the Ugandans very humorous and could often laugh with them.
I especcially missed:
If I am completely honest: Nothing, actually.
You can very well do without most things for a short period of six months, be it your favorite food or your usual leisure activities.
And thanks to the Internet, you’re always in very close contact with family and friends.
My plans for the future:
Finding the right balance between project assignments and my life in Germany.
Team members in portrait
Thorsten Kirsch works as a nurse for Cap Anamur in Somaliland. His most important piece of luggage for the trip: His guitar. Being involved in areas where his strengths lie and having an incredible number of opportunities for further training - Thorsten has taken a lot away for himself from his assignment.
Pediatric nurse Simone Ross had great experiences in both Sierra Leone and Uganda. Working in the emergency room, in the infant and pediatric wards, training local staff, organizing materials for the laboratory - the varied and diverse tasks were what she appreciated most about her work in the project.
As project coordinator, Shabbir Ahmed takes care of the health care facilities in Bangladesh with which Cap Anamur has cooperation agreements.
Midwife Sarah Schütz worked for six months in the Central African Republic at our hospital in Bossembélé. There she helped deliver many children including twins and premature babies.
Nurse Nele Grapentin's first mission took her to Uganda, but it is by no means to be her last mission for Cap Anamur. The curiosity of the children, the incredible strength of the Ugandan women and such a diverse country - when Nele Grapentin talks about her mission, she quickly goes into raptures.
Mathias Voss, a nurse, spent more than a year working in our hospital in Sudan. His duties included ward, emergency room or maternal-child clinic rounds and continuing education for local staff members.
Above all, the strong women impressed nurse Karina Busemann in Somaliland. If she had to list all the fond memories she has of her time on the project, it would probably make an entire book. The laughing children will remain in her memory for a long time.
Pediatrician Dorothea Kumpf was in Somalia for Cap Anamur. For six months, the young woman worked in a hospital in Somalialand, an area in the north of the country. Especially the open nature of the population remained in her lasting memory.
The nurse Anika Wentz talks about her 6 month assignment in our hospital in the Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan. There, she experienced many things that impress her to this day.
Andreas Tsukalas works as an architect for Cap Anamur in Somaliland. This is already his sixth deployment.
Afghan-born Faisal Haidari works as a project coordinator for Cap Anamur in Afghanistan. Since 2001, the Afghan, of Tajik descent, has been taking care of the progress of Cap Anamur projects in troubled Afghanistan.