... and tougher!!

I’m writing this in the luxury of the MAF Guesthouse in Dodoma. Today is a bank holiday in Tanzania (nane nane (8th of the 8th) or ‘farmers’ day’ so we are taking along weekend break. Irene has her swimming pool – we have free access to the Internet and a TV!!!! Hot shower and double bed don’t seem such a luxury now as we gained these in Mvumi a couple of weeks ago. Our one problem is we can’t download photos to the lap top as Malcolm (typical) forgot the cable, so these are limited at present – sorry!!!

Last time we came here Irene had a bad back which restricted us a bit. Not a problem at present, though we don’t expect to do a lot. This time we hope to get to the cathedral on Sunday for our first English service for over 3 months. One that we can understand!!! As is the usual Tanzanian custom part way through we will be expected to stand up and introduce ourselves – it will be strange not to be doing so in pigeon Swahili!!!!

In the past week we have had a guest in our house – John Clark, headmaster at the Secondary school. And he does work long hours. He gets up early to be at the school by 7am to make sure the boarders get up. He gets lots of visitors from England (he stayed with us as the headmaster and family of Harrow school was visiting for the week so they had the use of John’s house) and seems to be involved in some sort of entertainment most nights – so we hardly saw him except whn he got home about 10 pm to go straight to bed.

One of the parties visiting until last weekend were pupils from Dr Challoner’s Girls school, Little Chalfont – near to where we lived in Chesham – it’s a small world.

Malcolm has probably become one of the less popular people at the Hospital, for 2 reasons:
1. He doesn’t have enough money to pay July salaries – let alone PAYE and the equivalent of National Insurance. The approach he’s adopted, right or wrong, is to present the problem to the Management Committee asking for either:
- their monthly contribution, or
- instructions on which staff to pay as it is impossible (without taking funds held in trust for donors, drugs or the Government) to pay them all
Not surprisingly the departments concerned don’t like it. However, Malcolm hasn’t come here to be popular but to try and sort out some of the Financial problems.

2. The second issue is the audit report from the Tax Inspectors. They discovered about Tsh 50 million of unpaid tax. About half of this was known (the Hospital had deducted PAYE from salaries, but for about 18 months hadn’t passed it to the Revenues Authorities as they needed it to pay salaries (in part because the departments hadn’t been paying their contributions – see 1 above)). About half is because the hospital had been paying their staff significant allowances without deducting tax. Malcolm is implementing the main recommendations of the Revenues Authorities (that tax should be properly deducted from all allowances, and these should be recorded on the central payroll system) which has upset many people who seem to blame the management Task Force for calling in the auditors – which we didn’t.

Next week Malcolm will probably pick up the formal Tax assessment from the Inspectors. The Hospital then has 30 days to pay the assessment or agree instalments – neither of which there is any hope of doing unless the departments get real about their responsibilities and the hospital sorts out its funding problems, probably when it should get more grant as a Designated District Hospital. However progress on this is slow.

Irene has had a busy, but less controversial week. She completed the first stock-take of the medical stores for several years and is now compiling a list of items held. Managing the stores has not been helped by the lack of shelving which has meant that boxes have been piled together making it difficult for the staff to know what’s there, let alone locate it. One ‘pile’ was from a shipment received a couple of years ago – when checked there were many items that the hospital needed and fortunately most were still in date (although we noticed one bottle of iodine for scrubs which was dated ‘use by 1999’ so would have been several years out of date even when sent). Irene also received a new shipment of items from abroad. Many of the items were needed by the hospital – unfortunately some had been put in, with the best of intentions, to fill the container but which are no use to the Hospital. Fortunately the local coordinator is aware of the problem and looking at ways of preventing the waste in future.

Outside the Hospital we did have one scare. When we got back from church last Sunday Squashy, the Walton’s dog we are looking after, had escaped. Having searched the area we assumed he would return for food. When he still hadn’t come back the following morning we decided we ought to let Simon know. Having texted him, within 10 minutes our gardener / chicken carer, Steven, found Squashy in the Hospital. Phew!!! We were beginning to think someone may have taken him though he is well known in Mvumi being the largest, most ferocious looking (but friendly) dog around.

He might have simply guessed what was going to happen on Tuesday. Simon's last instruction was that Irene should give him an anti-flea injection in the neck - no trouble for a doctor!! The VSO doctor Corrie was away on safari. Malcolm was nowhere to be found (what a surprise)!!! Irene's not squeamish but even she found actually giving an injection difficult - she was more distressed than Squashy (who in the end seemed not bothered at all. Hopefully that will kill the fleas. Irene has had problems as they seem to like her, and bite to bury themselves in her skin. Tasty!

The other event was that ‘fundis’ completed as much as they could of the roof of the new St Andrew’s church on Friday – the church could only afford the materials to have about 80% done. About £400 is needed to complete the roof before moving on to doors and windows.

So, what happens next week:
- after our R&R at the Dodoma MAF Guest House we return to Mvumi
- Malcolm may be going to Tanga with the District Council to visit another Hospital that has recently become a Designated District Hospital
- Still need to pay July salaries, when the money is found
- Pick up the formal tax Inspection report and prepare a summary for the Bishop and Management Committee
- Irene still waiting for more shelving so she can complete filing the medical Records