The hospital was so much more modern than we expected, it turns out the Japanese government sponsored the building of a brand new part of the hospital housing the opd, the operating theatres, the X-ray department and the pharmacy. There was no obvious main entrance tho which posed a problem when it came to meeting the lady from the ministry of health.
We made or way down to the wards (in the old part of the hospital ) and found a nurse to speak to about the fact we were meeting mrs Asha. We were informed she doesn't work in the hospital and we'd have to get a bus to the ministry of health to find her. Luckily. We turned round. And there she was! She explained she'd forgotten we were coming and all the other medical students had cancelled because of the cyclone. She exclaimed it was just luck that she was here when we were. Needless to say it was a great stroke of luck as she sorted us out, showed us aroj d and introduced us to Dr Kevin a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology.
We participated in an obstetric ward round and went to the surprisingly well equipped operating theatre to watch a few procedures.
What has struck us the most is that the knowledge that the consultant ts and registrars have here is exactly on par with those in England just the level of care they appear to be able to give the people of vanuatu seems so much less because of equipment shortages and reduced fAcilities. It seems the cyclone hasn't had too much of a negative effect on the hospital they have restored most of the roofs and cleared most of the debris. It seems sad that the other medical students have cancelled as it seems like it's going to be a brilliant experience
We were back at Coconut palms by lunchtime. Had some cheese, ham and bread and had a good sunbathe.
Sunset at coconut palms
Amy's terribly embarassing experience of the day; 'On walking back from the room. I was approached by a friendly elderly Australian chap who mistook me for someone he had been speaking to the night before. He asked me if I could 'do him a favour' which entailed embarassing his nephew explaining I had seen him naked on the roof of a bar in Australia in order to get alex and I a drink. Needless to say the nephew was having none of it. We ended up red, embarassed and drink less' note to self. Never agree to do any favours without the drink first :)
We went to the organisation site for natural disaster relief. This was really cool there were unicef tents and women's aid tents. And a distinct absence of volunteers which seemed to suggest the clean up had gp e well and they were scaling things down
Our second day at hospital: we had the privilege of visiting the special care baby unit, we saw the smallest baby we think ether of us had ever seen. He wasn't premature but growth restricted and weighed about 950g at birth. He was so adorable and it was incredible to learn that they endeavoured to give the babies the same care they'd receive elsewhere, despite this the baby had no monitoring on so they just use clinical examination to assess wellbeing. Very cool. We did another ward rob d and attended an antenatal clinic that was the fastest clinic we had ever been to. We both got to palmate the pregnant bellies and listen to heart beats. Very cool, might need to do a bit of obs and Gynae revision thoufhb
We're back sunbathing again , the doctors are chilled about Fridays (or maybe every day)!? 
We haven't managed to take many pictures but will do in the coming weeks
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