#TeamNorthMid blogs

#ThisIsMe by Dr Arundhati Kadam

“There are so many good things I observed here which I am definitely going to implement in my set up. Life is valued more at North Mid.”

Words by Dr Arundhati Kadam

 

In this special edition of #ThisIsMe, Dr Arundhati Kadam, a visiting paediatrician from India, shares her positive and remarkable experience during her three-week observatory work at North Mid, which inspired her to bring back all the best practices to her district hospital in India.

 

I am Dr Arundhati Kadam, a paediatrician from India.

I was at North Mid in London from 2 -25 April working as a fellow observer in mother and child health. I am a medical superintendent in a district hospital in Satara, in the state of Maharashtra. I have been working as a general paediatrician for last 22 years in the government sector.

Back in India, my hospital is comprised of 240 beds. There are 20 beds for paediatric patients, but Bed Occupancy Rate (BOR) is always high and my unit, the Special Newborn Care Unit, has 12 beds, but its BOR is also at 160 to 200 percent over capacity. We are always overburdened with patients. We are lacking in manpower as doctors are not joining government hospitals because of this huge work burden and of course there are so many other reasons. Still, we managed to reduce our neonatal death rate for my district in comparison with others by providing good nursing care, aseptic measures, clustering of care, Kangaroo mother care, absolute breast feeding for six months, and family participatory care. We have also reduced antibiotics usage.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) visited my hospital in India in June 2023. l represented my district and gave them information on how the district health system works.. The team visited some health centres from rural to urban areas including my district hospital. Despite such huge work and burden, less manpower and resources, we are providing good outcomes for patients. Maybe this is the reason they selected me for this fellowship.

In my observatory fellowship awarded to me at North Mid, l attended rounds with paediatric consultants in accident and emergency, Rainbow Ward, neonatal intensive care unit, the out-patient department, and all speciality clinics. First of all, l was surprised that North Mid is a government hospital, because the infrastructure here in the UK is so good with separate rooms with TV and toys. All the medical equipment is nicely placed with baby privacy screens, the good provision of food to patients as well as the resuscitation trolley nicely equipped in each ward is very impressive for me and I will definitely give feedback to our senior leadership to help implement these things in every government hospital. I also noticed doctors and nurses having very good communication and counselling skills. I observed a very good written handover by doctors and nurses and huddles taking place after rounds which I found very useful when starting at North Mid.

The CEO of the hospital, Dr Nnenna Osuji, visited the wards and talked with trainee doctors which was really amazing to see. I also attended Schwartz rounds which was helpful to free up one's thoughts. There are so many good things I observed here which I am definitely going to implement in my set up back in India.

 

We thank Dr Kadam for taking part in our #ThisIsMe blog series which focuses on the incredible diversity of our workforce across North Mid, beyond the usual protected characteristics of age, disability, ethnicity, religious beliefs, gender, sex and sexual orientation.

Please help us encourage fellow Trust colleagues to do the same by sharing this post.

Feel free to share any feedback or comments. If you wish to share your own story or think you know colleague who might want to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences about diversity, please contact our communications team at northmid.comms@nhs.net