Deborah and Julie's Oman blog - entry 2

Julie and Huda

We spent the day at the Sultan Qaboos hospital today. The day began with numerous talks about the nursing directorate. Many of the problems are similar to those in the UK. Increasing demands and not enough in-patient beds. Met up with Huda who arranged our visit. Huda has done various programmes of study in the UK. We toured the hospital and everyone was very friendly and welcoming, we both got the impression they were very pleased to see two nursing visitors from the UK.

 We are due to give a formal presentation tomorrow which is basically saying how wonderful Hull, its hospitals and the faculty is. During our tour Huda kept reminding the ward managers about it, so goodness knows how many folks will turn up! Lots of overseas trained nurses on the wards and the nursing directorate has just a  few Omani members. The opportunity to study in the UK is only open to Omani nurses. During our tour we encountered many Omani nurses who had already been to the UK or other countries to study US, Australia and Wales.

It's not all work
Julie in the souk (market)

Big issue here with haematology problems and women turning up unannounced to give birth. I think they said eight deliveries in the ED within the last few weeks. Apparently mothers will travel from miles around to give birth as the hospital is seen as a centre of excellence. If a mother is in the early stages of labour they will turn her away and ask her to go to her booked hospital. Some though leave it too late or sit in the car park until they are fully dilated at which point they obviously can't turn them away! 

Deborah and Julie