I would say the description of the poor conditions were under stated. Dirt, Dirt, Dirt, tables that were scary to touch, floors caked with what ever crawled in, carried in on dirty feet or leaked in from open doors windows and very little light which might have been a blessing, well no need to carry on you get it. The other thing that stood out and was most noticeable of all was the amount of people needing care. 500-600 people waiting outside before we arrived. We were late arriving, late setting up, late getting started. But we all stepped up and did what we had to do to get the work done. Molly and I were assigned triage. Marie and Vicky in charge of intake. Chrispy with the pharmacist in well the pharmacy. The docs set up in two walled off areas but quickly fell behind. I dropped triage and nick took over I set up my station in the hallway and took the less acute patients. So now with me acting as flow master and using my NP we were able to keep up at least in the provider area. Those of you who know Im a manager who works on schedules and budgets all day I guess are laughing your heads off but its true I borrowed a stethoscope put on my 100% deet and got to work. I hate to say it but the people coming through were a bit pitiful and we were ill equipped to care for them. We had plenty of good intentions and a decent amount of knowledge a moderate amount of meds but.... They have an abundance and a verity of STDs we really had nothing suitable to treat it. They all suffered from some degree of malaria again not what we had to offer. Did you know a symptom of malaria is pussy vagina? What white girl from land park would or pussy ears what is that about. Also big bellys may mean starvation but it just might mean worms. Really I was supposed to know this? All this and no internet to look it up. And jiggers? Worms that live in the dirt and burrow into your feet and have to be cut out. Cut them out? Ya right they have no shoes or clean water, we cut them out and they will likely loose their feet to infection. Ok that was me. Poor Marie had it worse the first day, intake was a job were you sit on a bench with the interpreter on one side and a patient on the other no personal space boundaries were in place as were no shower or tooth brushing requirements. And the line never ended as well as the special persons who were coming in the back door either by bribing someone or being related to someone. At one point Marie went out to get some air and came right back in as she said she had been surrounded by women trying to hand her their baby. I got her out the front way and we went for a walk. I had planned to get her moved to the pharmacy were there was just as much work but ore space and air but while we were gone Vicky moved into the spot and Marie was back to intake. At 3 we shut the doors and told the still about 400 people no more. It was bad at that point many people started coming in the back door we had to barricade it with a bench. Finally around 4:30 no one had left and we decided to skip Wednesdays clinic and return to this one for a second day. We drove back to the hotel like place with a hole for a toilet and a rock for a pillow in silence. We all went straight to the bar as a cold shower from a bucket didnt sound all that great. Sooner or later we ate and went to bed.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:47:16 +0000