A Unique Family

I have been working at RFM hospital full time for over a year now. Through this time I have become fully integrated into the hospital. I know the guards, the pharmacists, the x-ray techs, the surgeons, the orthopedists, the porters, etc, etc. I think though the people I am most fond of are the nurses on the children wards. Today in the weekly doctors meeting for the pediatric department, the chief reviewed the numbers for last year. The mortality rate for the childrens ward last year was 19%. Basically one in five children admitted to the wards will die. In the United States the mortality in pediatric hospitals is around is less than 0.5%. When I heard this I was not surprised. In the clinic we split time on the wards between myself and Dr. Lucia. At the end of a couple weeks, I always need a break because I am emotionally burnt out and frustrated. I realized today though that the nurses in the children's ward do not get that break. They are always there. They get attached to the patients and the mothers as much as if not more than I do. Yet they are the hardest workers with the best attitude in the hospital and possibly the country. I think it is thanks to their attitude that there is overall such a good feeling on the wards. There is an air of camaraderie and support on the wards between the staff itself, the staff and the families and the families themselves. Some of these children are there for weeks to months and within a room or cube the families are together 24 hours a day. Today one of the mother's came to our clinic for adherence counselling. When we do counselling before initiation of the HIV medications we ask for a treatment supporter to come. Who did this mother bring? Her mother, her sister, the father of her child? No, she brought her neighbor in the wards.

Like any family, we share the sad times, but we also share happy times. Just before the holidays this year, the mother of one of the internal medicine doctors got donors to contribute for a Christmas party on the wards. Below you see the organizer with Dr Kimba, my favorite doctor, and Nomile. Nomile had been brought to the wards by a church group because she was being neglected on her homestead. When she first arrived, she was malnourished and would not make any eye contact. She would not cry when you examined her, she would just sit there with her head hanging down. By the end of her stay, she had become queen of the ward. She would wonder from cube to cube, room to room. By the time she left she had many different mothers.

A group from a local orphanage was also included in the party.

The families all got more food then they could eat and all the children presents. The mood was definitely high that day.