Another Monday at the Hospital

We woke up early this morning and made our way to the hospital.   A couple students and I made our way to minor theatre because we had never worked there for a whole morning shift.  It was pretty busy and we managed to redress some wounds and change some catheters by ourselves.  The third patient I saw was a man who needed a redressing done on his foot.  He had been in a bus accident and was going home to Nairobi tomorrow and wanted it cleaned before he left.  He was very friendly and kept telling us “God Bless You” and “You girls are so nice! Remember, if you are nice to others, they shall return the favor.”  We made conversation as we began to clean his foot wound.  After we had cleaned it out we were in the process of re-bandaging it when there was no more sterile gauze left in the theatre.  We asked the nurse, other doctors, and the matron (head nurse) and they all said they were getting it.  Meanwhile, we tried to keep our patient busy while we rounded up some gauze.  The matron came back and announced we wouldn’t have any gauze until tomorrow.  All of us were shocked; you can’t do any procedures except urethral catheters without sterile gauze.  Many of us went searching in other departments and asking for gauze but it didn’t lead us to any.  It was hard to believe the entire hospital was out of sterile gauze, and even harder for us to believe that the nurse wanted us to tell the 25 patients waiting that they would need to come back tomorrow.  One of the other parts of the hospital had told one of the students that we might be able to find some at the sterilization center but as we were walking out the doors the matron chewed us out because we need to “accept” that there was no way to get any.  It becomes disheartening to know that no matter how hard you try to help someone there are sometimes things you can’t control in the situation that prevents you from completing your task.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel like I’m becoming discouraged with medicine in general but I just wish I had the knowledge to diagnose more, perform more, or be able to supply the hospital resources.  

I still enjoy medicine and there are times during the day when I can really sit back and be in awe at the powers of medicine, even in Kenya. That being said, I think anyone that has been immune to third world medicine can understand the love-hate struggle that goes on internally.  I had this feeling today in the hospital; after a crummy morning in minor theatre I went to postnatal care in maternity to see if there was anything I could do.  The moment I walked in it was like my muscles relaxed because the room was filled with mothers and their new-born babies.  It gave me hope, and made me realize that yeah, working in a hospital you have to deal with hard things sometimes but there is new life surviving each and every day. If it’s simply seeing a newborn baby in its mother’s arms or having a man really appreciate what you are doing, then I’d call that a pretty successful day. 

Because we didn’t have much to do most of us went to lunch at Caribou the local café.  When we got back my roommates, Natalie and Chelsea decided that it was time to face our looming pile of laundry.  Although the laundry facilities aren’t a whirlpool washer and dryer, it’s not as bad a scrubbing my clothes in a river.  We hand wash everything but you have one bucket with soapy water and one bucket with rinsing water.  By the end of our piles our hands were pruney and sore from wringing out clothing. I’m happy to announce my clothes are washed and hanging on the line and hopefully I won’t need to relive that experience for quite some time.     

Tomorrow we are going to the orphanage because, Joel, one of the students in medical school raised money to rebuild some of the school portion.  We are going to look at it and hopefully start that project.  Wednesday will be another day in the hospital, but Thursday morning we leave bright and early for Safari! I can’t wait!

                                           The "records book" we keep in minor theatre

                                            What the patient's files look like