The first mother was in the hospital because she
delivered still born twins at home and they thought she had PPH, but weren’t
sure how much blood she actually lost. A blood transfusion was started and
after further testing, it turned out she was severely anemic which is probably
why she lost the babies. She also had very strange upper labia majora/minora
tears which the doctors speculated were caused by the person who “delivered”
the babies at home. The wounds were cleaned with just soapy water and stitched
up.
The other two mothers on the main floor were both
dilated to 8 cm and I thought it was going to be a race to see who would
deliver first, but the first mother went into prolonged labor – even though the
baby had made progression – and she was sent up to the millennium theatre for a
C-section. The second mother was basically headed down the same path, so we
just decided to go grab some lunch instead and head back to the hospital later
in the evening. I haven’t been eating much at the compound – we are cooked one
meal a day and it usually consists of rice or tortillas with some sort of
stewed topping. You can only eat so much of that! But we are within walking
distance of two cafés that serve great food, so don’t worry, I won’t starve!
Later that evening a group of us went back to
casualty with some of the veterans to work a night shift. Little did I know my
previous uneventful day was going to turn into one hectic evening. Our first
case was a young boy who had gotten injured in a tuktuk accident. He had a
fairly deep cut on his malleolus and the staff sent him to us for an
evaluation. We cleaned the wounds, and ended up giving him two stitches. From
there we went back into the ER where there is no rhyme or reason. It’s
impossible to tell who has been examined and who has not – and there is no
sense of urgency like you would expect there to be. An elderly lady came in
with chest pains and difficulty breathing. A heart attack was suspected right
away, but after reviewing the X-rays and listening to her lungs, we determined
she had pneumonia. Another 6 month old baby came in with labored breathing. She
needed suctioning, but the hospital is not equipped with a lot of tools – not
even a functioning AED – so we gave her a neb treatment followed by oxygen. She
was nearly flat lined when we saw her, but was back to a stable heart beat when
we ended up leaving.
It was a very stressful evening but hoping for a
better day at the orphanage tomorrow!
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