Tues 27th Dec 2011
We're getting rather a lot of practice at the extremely fun game of 'spot the doctor' each morning, which is like a real life version of Where's Wally except you look for a white coat instead of red and white stripes. The doctors here have an uncanny knack of all vanishing after the morning meeting finishes and when the actual doctor work would be expected to begin. Nothing (ward rounds, clinics, theatre) is scheduled for any particular time, so it's really pot luck to be in the right place at the right time when something's going on.
So today we failed to spot any white coats at all and eventually decided to hang out with the midwives instead. This was something we had yet to experience in Africa, so things worked out pretty well. There were two preggos in labour today and we were able to follow them all the way to the births.
The first thing that struck us about the labour ward was just how many moths were in there. As any mother will tell you, labour takes aaaaages so there was quite a lot of time for us to dedicate to concerted counting of these creatures. We got to about 213 before it all became too hard/boring and gave up. So rather a lot of moths then.
Apart from the wildlife, the other big difference to Australia is that there is no pain relief offered for labour. It's not that they can't (epidurals are done for c-sections on pretty much a daily basis), it's just that it is not considered okay. Also, the women aren't allowed to have anyone present from their families, so husbands and other family members have to hang out around the hospital's gardens. Expectant mothers have to be tough cookies here in Africa!
Unfortunately, both mothers went into obstructed labour and had to be taken for caesarean sections. At least this time they were given an epidural! There were flies inside of the operating thaetre, which was at least a bit of variation to the moths.
The second case was quite confronting, as the patient was only 14 years old. Something that would surely necessitate a police investigation in Australia! Even worse, she almost lost her baby before she could even hold it. The baby came out with an Apgar score of about 3 and needed resuscitation. This was challenging because there was no oxygen and the nurse clearly hadn't had much training in CPR. We were really scared the baby was going to die and weren't able to intervene. Thankfully, both mother and baby are doing well now.
Next we went for lunch, which has become a bit like deja va as there is only one thing on the hospitals's menu. Cleary there are a lot of glitches in the Matrix in this part of the world. The dish is called pilau, which is basically rice and chunks of sinew with a little bit of meat that gets stuck in your teeth. So living here is sort of like being an enforced vegetarian, which hurts considerably.
After pilau, I spent the evening by absolutely destroying Justin in both yahtzee and several games of chess, so basically this was the best day ever.
Kwa heri,
Michael
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