Mulago Slog Continues

Our afternoon lecture started with a prayer and ended with a prayer. "God- give us the ability to learn and work together as a team. .......". First topic of conversation: a gift for sister Annett (nurse) - a bag of 10 digital thermometers - which she then handed out to the med students because we have one digital thermometer for the whole floor. That is 1 thermometer shared amongst 150 people on the infectious disease unit where we don't have enough sanitizer to spare to wash it. So, everyone gets axillary temps- but that still is crappy infection control. Most of the time they don't even bother with vital signs anyway- I mean what can they do about whatever they find anyway? Second topic of conversation: there is no paper for patient records. There are no file folders left because they were used when the paper ran out. "This is not a problem" announces the Chief doctor on the unit "we just ask the families to buy notebooks". We then discuss a couple cases of death. "If God wants to take a life there is not much we can do"- this is said a few times by different African doctors. The cases are so rudimentary I could treat these patients- scary.
Yesterday at the hospital 6 died- I wheeled beds with dead bodies into the back room as family members hung onto the bed and cried. We start med administration at one end of the floor and work our way through 150 patients to the other end. I get yelled at everytime I go back to hang a second med for someone. I am used to keeping track of people- I remember what I've left unfinished. The nurses at Mulago have no idea what is going on with people they just give meds and keep going. Nothing is explained. If you are a family member, you are the nurse. You must remind the nurse of everything that needs to be done. News has traveled that I will come and help and so people are constantly tapping me on the shoulder. The nurses here could do so much more if they weren't so lazy and the attitude is "it's in god's hands anyway" .. "there's not much we can do". The patients also ask me to buy medications for them because they are poor and I want to sooo so badly. I just know the minute I start that- 150 people are going to be asking me.
Today there were IV fluids finally but no IV tubing. That made it hard to give people their IV antibiotics. There was also no blood for blood transfusions- not that they would waste that on a lot of people anyway.
My little soldier (who is 26- my age- I don't know why I call him little) with the upper GI bleed is still alive. Not exactly conscious, but still alive. Everyone is teetering on death there. Everyone. I don't know why I like him so much- because he's young and his soldier friend spends countless hours cleaning his bloody stool, bloody vomit. I want so badly to seem him monday when I come back but I'm really afraid I won't. With the ones who could use it and get better, I hand them out IV fluids and tell them to save them for later. I know I shouldn't but I can't help it. The young ones- are too young. Death is just a fact of life here. Most women have lost children and it is interesting to see how detached they are. There is nothing I can do about the lack of nutrition. We have feeding tubes but no tube feed. I just instruct people to force feed their loved ones. They all line up for porridge, which is the only food the hospital provides. Porridge here is some white, nutritionless, grain in milk. They get one mug per person. And that is if you have a family member to go and get it. People that don't have family go unwashed, unmedicated, unfed, no sheets, ..... Often another person, a stranger, will help them. But they won't buy things for them. Yesterday I found more than one person lying in their own shit and by the looks of things had been for days. There are no sheets so I couldnt change them. Today- I'm going to the market to get some. Here if you are strong enough to walk- you can walk home.

On a lighter note: went to the R Kelly concert last night which was the concert of the year. Thousands of people just lovin R Kelly. Remix to Ignition.. I believe I can FLy. It was just as entertaining as it sounds. Getting in was scary though. The line broke and everyone ran for the gate. As we started to get crushed (and I started to get the "shit shit shit"feeling), the crowd erupted as police started hiting people with sticks and firing into the air in front of me. I mean literally 2 people away from me. The color of my skin saved me from being hit. Nobody cares about the black man- not even Africans. We ducked and ran in. Then in the crowd to see R Kelly I was pushed into the middle of 2 fights. Then when we left, we hoped on the back of a motor bike. We are zooming between cars with the traffic and I here the screech of tires to look back and see a car loose control and hit the median like 10 feet away from me. My whole pack of guardian angels is still hard at work- even at 3am. We danced all night... again. I really love Kampala.