Thursday we went to chapel before rounds, which is 30
minutes of prayer, singing, and a short message. We show compassion by being
kind to our coworkers and providing good care to our patients was the topic and
seemed to be well received by the 7 or so staff members who attended. The
singing was in Swahili and of course there were no instruments, and they
sounded marvelous. Harmonizing, adding parts, etc.
We did rounds of the pediatric, women’s, and men’s wards for
the rest of the day.
Friday morning after chapel we attended staff meeting. Let
me first explain what was explained to me: Relationships are of the utmost
importance here. You must be careful to say or do nothing to damage a
relationship. Therefore, incompetent people are not fired and there is no
discipline or accountability because no one wants to hurt anybody’s feelings.
So we’re going along in staff meeting, and someone brings up the fact that none
of the patients are weighed, including the children. All of a sudden the entire
room erupts into a shouting match. That one lasted probably a full 10 minutes.
That finally calms down and another issue is brought up and off they go again.
In the middle of that one they run out of places on the 4 benches in the room
so someone brings in another bench and plops it down in the middle of the room
for more people to come in and join the chaos. People are running in and out
constantly, on the phone, yelling, etc. So after an hour of that, staff meeting
is closed and everybody leaves… but no one is angry. Everyone is greeting and
shaking hands and happy and making sure no relationships are damaged. I kind of
just stared at everyone.
Rounds on Friday were much better than the other few times I’ve
rounded with the doctor, but still frustrating. The files were missing again,
the charts were just pieces of paper taped together. No vitals had been taken
since the evening before although the machine was plugged in at the end of the
room. Half of the patients had not received their meds. The doctor says this is
completely normal.
Don’t read the following paragraph if you’re tenderhearted.
We round on the pediatric ward first. We’re standing at the
first patient’s bed, and I look over at the second bed and say “Hmm, that child
is laying awfully still.” He’s also on one of our 2 oxygen concentrators, so I
went over to check. The child is not breathing, I check for a pulse and he has
none. His body is burning up but he’s completely cyanotic and his extremities
are cold. I call the doctor over and ask if they code kids or if they have
epinephrine or something. They don’t. He said we could give him fluids is the
extent of the treatment available. His pupils were fixed and dilated. The
doctor pronounced him, then told the mom, who was lying next to the child while
we did all this. Mom started screaming and crying, didn’t want to be touched.
Everyone just stood there and stared, then shrugged and turned away. The doctor
told the staff to go get screens, they put them around the bed and continued
their day. I think I was the only one slightly bothered. Apparently the culture
here is very fatalistic, and most parents lose at least 1 child if not 4. We
had rounded on the kid the previous day, he was diagnosed with severe malaria
and had been treated appropriately. There wasn’t anything more they could have
done with the resources available. His last vital signs had been a temperature
a 6 am and it was quite elevated. The thermometer is one you just point at the
temple, you don’t have to wake up the patient to do it, so the doctor said the
kid could have been laying there dead for hours.
I was upset, but not overwhelmingly so, which bothered me. I
don’t know if it’s a self-preservation thing to not be emotional or just not
super tender hearted anymore after seeing so much death as a nurse. I haven’t
figured out a happy medium there yet.
While we were in the middle of the ward, one of the surgeons
came running up with a huge wad of something bloody in his (gloved) hand. It
was someone’s ruptured appendix he had just removed and was super excited
about. All the kids were climbing up on their beds to see it. True story.
I made friends with one of the nursing assistant students
who said she wants to learn English, so that could be good.
There was a woman who had had a left forehead laceration
repair the day before that we saw. Her bandage had not been changed and it was that
super sticky athletic tape. It took the nursing assistant 20 minutes to get it
off, ripped half of her skin off and it was all infected and nasty. She was 77
years old and somehow was in a motorbike accident. Maybe it hit her, but it’s
very possible that she had been riding on the back of one without a helmet.
Walking, bicycles, motorbikes, “dalahs” (I don’t know about
spelling), and cars are the modes of transport here, with cars being the least
common. Though I have seen a gentleman with no legs peddling a cart around with
his hands, so you could probably get one of those if you needed to. The roads
are lovely here. Meaning if you have back problems don’t come here, you’ll die.
The cars are equipped with 4-wheel drive, which is used. If anyone wants to
start a business that sells monster truck suspension stuff you would probably do
very well here.
Got home from the hospital and went kayaking!! It was a
little wavy to begin with, then got higher and higher. Is there a word for
kayak wheelies? Cause I did some. Also, I found the bat cave. I don’t like bats
but since they didn’t try to strike up a conversation with me it was fine. Also,
the lake is 5000 feet deep as it is the 2nd deepest freshwater lake
in the world. Glad I didn’t know that before I went out there.
Today, (Saturday), I went to a beach on the lake with
another American family from here. It was absolutely lovely and I saw lots of
cool fish while snorkeling. It was calm at first then got super wavy and rough,
which apparently it does every afternoon. Also, it’s cold, crystal clear, and
gets very, very deep.
Then after I got back, I SAW ZEBRAS!!!!!
Now, it is not the norm for “zoo” animals to be roaming the
streets, they usually stay in parks which are 6 hours away by dirt road, but
this particular pack of zebras belongs to the government and they
just live here! They eat trash as well as grass, apparently. 5 big ones and a
baby one. I was close enough to pet them, but thought “Young Volunteer Nurse
Mauled by Zebras” didn’t sound like a good headline.
Please pray for me to learn Swahili quickly, to be useful,
and to be listening to God closely.
Love you!
-K
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