Sunday was a fairly quiet day for PT. We are seeing three children in pediatrics – two babies with Spina bifida/hydrocephalus. They recently had their surgeries by a visiting neurosurgeon.

Susanne and Nick gave a good work out to Serginio, a five-year old with osteomyelitis. His face lights up now when he sees us. He holds on to a special coin all day so when we play with him, we have  to tape it to his shirt. Not sure who gave him the coin but he is quite attached to it.

Serginio, a five-year old with osteomyelitis

Throughout the day there are trauma cases coming in. This morning a man was brought in by the police. He had fallen off his motorcycle and suffered a severe proximal hip fracture with dislocation and an open tibia fracture on the other leg. The OR here didn't have the right equipment to treat him here, so one of the doctors had to barter with another hospital and take a much more serious patient as a trade. And by that I mean, on a ventilator with his entire abdomen opened. Several more cholera children at triage.

We got the ok to get a woman up who had been crushed by a wall which fell on her. She had several fingers amputated and a clavicle fracture. She is waiting to have skin grafts done on her hands on Monday. When getting her up it became evident that they may have missed a femur or pelvic fracture as she clearly wasn't able to put weight on that leg. Lucky for her a very nice Orthopedic is here and he made plans to get her pelvis X-rayed.

The man who lost the skin on both arms is now in med/surg waiting to be transferred to a Burn Unit. There is great meaning to the phrase "color is only skin deep". Both of his arms look like he is white. Actually a healthy pink. He hasn't been given any pain meds and was happy to sit up in bed and stand for a few minutes.

The evening's activity was "shower-hopping" – going from room to room in search of a shower that had a stream of water wider than the meager flow one would get trying to shower with an IV bag hung upside down. The winner resides in Bunk 2, set aside for night workers… what the night crew doesn't know won't hurt them. 

As every day has an OMG moment when you see something you can't comprehend, ours today was a visit to "poop river" located behind the hospital. Family members dump patients "waste" in to a gully which holds stagnant water/urine/feces. There are no toilets for the patients or the family members to use. To be honest, words cannot describe how I feel about learning of this practice. In all fairness, this probably happened last year in the far back wooded area behind the Hospital Lumiere. This however, is different, very different. Susanne says this is beyond horrendous — beyond outrageous… How can this be?

With all of the challenges staff are experiencing, one good thing is that we are bonding as a group and having many good laughs.

— Jen