Family

Thursday, August 22

The day started with morning report and I may just be optimistic, but I think I was able to understand quite a bit of the discussion this morning.  While the staff prefers to speak Chichewa, English is what is spoken in morning report but the accents make it difficult and require a lot of concentration.  

Rounding today was fairly smooth and several patients were able to go home.  We still have a couple of rather difficult to figure out patients and there are also issues with making plans for feeding schedules of malnourished patients that then are not done or are not recorded.  Lots of diplomacy to try to push for compliance without making anyone upset.

We then were called to the ED area.  A small child had a large abscess in the neck area causing him to struggle to breathe.  The surgeons here were not able to address this given the concerns about an unstable airway.  Truly an emergency, but yet many people standing around with no action being taken. I inquired about why the delay if transport was the obvious requirement.  Money. The ambulance transfer costs 36,000 kwacha ($40) and the family could not afford that. We truly were going to stand around and watch a child take his last breath over $40.  Again, the realities of life here. So I made a mad dash to my room, came and stood in the payment line, and brought back the receipt that would allow the ambulance to be called. I don’t know that the mother knew what happened but a few of the staff members expressed appreciation.  It was my joy to be able to say openly that God gives us blessings to be shared because we are are all family. Of note, another patient was able to join in the transport and they brought back a unit of blood for a critical patient so several families benefitted.

We spent a little more time on the unit and then went to the guesthouse for lunch.  The question today is do you tip your laundry lady for doing you the service of hanging your undergarments on the back row so that it isn’t in full view of everyone on the path.  

This afternoon we did not have any admissions. I spent some time reading for educational modules that the residents will be doing.  The families on the ward spend a lot of their time outside in the family area in the afternoon. One sweet girl who is awaiting a transfusion was in her bed alone.  There is currently no blood here so the wait continues until someone donates. I snuck her a small doll I had brought and enjoyed her smiles and play.