Daily reports from the WHO-PDA Pharmaceutical Cold Chain Management on Wheels Learning Experience
DAY THREE:
As I was saying, we checked into our hotel around 10:00 PM, threw my bags into my room and immediately went to dinner. We walked for about a mile in a light rain (and downhill the entire way), through the busy streets of Bursa, Turkey’s fourth largest city. We came upon a narrow side street lined on either side with a series of restaurants and cafes teeming with patrons. This area of town is known as Arapsukru (Arab thanks). The din of laughter and live music trickled down the cobblestones like the subsiding rain. The owner of the Vira Restaurant greeted us. Vira, vira is a Turkish shanty of sorts, often chanted by local fisherman when hauling nets. The rain relented and we dined alfresco. Platefuls of calamari, salads, and snapper were passed in all directions as were bottles of red wine and Raki, the national drink - a clear liqueur made from Annis and usually diluted with water and one or two ice cubes. Joining us for dinner was a group of doctors who would host us at their facility in the morning. It wasn’t long before the Turkish in our party broke out in song. A local band tucked their chairs in with ours and entertained us all with a combination of music played at a schizophrenic pace: classical Turkish, gypsy and arabesque, prompting everyone in our party onto the dance floor. The partying continued long after I left (around midnight) and several of our group staggered “home” in the wee hours – some literally; others figuratively, roughly negotiating the mile-long hill back to the hotel.
Today was met with brilliant sunshine and we had a short bus ride to the Provincial Health Directorate Vaccine Storage facility in Bursa. We were escorted by our previous night's dinner colleagues to the office of the Provincial Health Director for tea. (Nothing ever seems to happen on our visits without first sharing in a glass of hot Turkish tea.) The PCCMoW participants were divided into groups to document the quality and performance of the vaccine store using a new Excel spreadsheet tool developed and used by WHO called Effective Vaccine Management, or EVM. The site scored very well. The pride pieces of equipment at this facility are a pair of custom cold chain vans specifically designed and built for the provincial health directorate for distribution of vaccines to the local primary health centers.
An EVM team admiring the new provincial cold chain van
Our afternoon remained sunny as we visited (in small groups) four retail pharmacies and assessed them using applicable sections of the EVM tool related to receipt and storage of cold chain products and equipment (such as refrigerator maintenance and monitoring.
We had a 150 km journey ahead of us to the next overnight destination and took a break at a roadside cafe to develop and present the days' findings. We unloaded from the hold of the bus the packages from the Pharmaceutical Transport Challenge that the participants assembled on Monday and exposed them to a few hours of long-awaited radiant heat before continuing on.
Arrived in Balikesir around 10:30. The mentors met in the lobby for a mid-course assessment and to gain feedback and constructive criticism from each other on sessions we conducted to date. This is the fourth night in a row that I have not gone to bed before 3:00 AM. Morning comes early. Good night...
Packages from the Pharmaceutical Transport Challenge intentionally
left in the sun on the road to Balikesir