MOHSW

Today was my first trip to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) here in Maseru. They justed moved offices yesterday, so the new building (while beautifully out of place amongst the rest of the offices here) was a wreck with furniture and boxes. (Actually, the new building was quite controversial because people were upset that the MOHSW spent so much money building the new office, rather than their own government run referral hospital....)

I met with the head epidemiologist, statistician, and senior monitoring and evaluation director. We just stopped in and handed them a draft of the report that we have due at the end of March (those this deadline will likely be pushed back to June). Everyone was MOHSW is crazy busy because their Annual Joint Review (AJR) is next week, and it's a BIG deal. Actually, Sarah and I will be attending the two day AJR at the Lesotho Sun Hotel (and Casino), so that should be interesting. We were told to bring work in case it gets boring :)

The report we gave them is the International Finance Corporation (IFC) funded study of the QEII hospital. We have to get a baseline assessment of services there, so that when the government selects a private partner to operate the hospital, they'll know what needs to be improved. Also, it is a way for the MOHSW to determine what the new operator has accomplished after a defined future period of time. In the next few weeks, I'll actually be administering a physician (and maybe patient) satisfaction survey, to get a baseline for that info as well. All as a part of the IFC report.

I'm in the office now, listening to the BBC World Service and pulling together information for the Problem Solving for Better Health (PSBH) workshop slated for March 12-14. Along with Suzanna, I will be organizing this workshop, as well as being a co-facilitator in the actual sessions.

For lunch, I had some roasted chicken, some mixed nuts and raisins and water. Dinner, probably roasted vegetables.

Tonight, I'll continue to work on the IFC report clean-up, and maybe have a Skype conference call with the Boston office.

Sarah is up in Leribe until Friday, working with Suzanna's father (Phil Elkin) and the registrars (that's what they call residents here). She's going to rounds at the hospital there, participating in an HIV/AIDS workshop, and I'm not entirely sure what else. She was really excited to go, so it should be great.

More when there's more...