Thursday´s news

Wow--can´t believe it is thursday already...I think today we did six suregeries, including the poor man who sat there for the entire day yesterday that we were not able to get to. This morning the doctor let all of us do rounds with him...I thought the surgery ward was very primitive...it is the RITZ compared to the rest of the hospital....people are just laying in the hallways....there are no real ¨waiting area¨ so people are just sitting everywhere....the smell of urine is overpowering. When you go into the wards (they have mens, womens, and childrens)they are just laying on the bare bed...some have sheets but no one has any pillows or anything unless your family brings you some. The patients we visited for post op were all doing fine and very happy to see us and they let us take pictures with them. They were serving breakfast when we were doing rounds....it consists of two pieces of bread and refriend beans and something that looks like coffee...and that is it. One thing I also wanted to mention was that in the surgery ward we only have one bathroom...and I don´t mean one set of mens and women´s bathrooms...I mean ONE toilet. The team that was here last year said we have it easy...last year it didn´t have toilet seat on it and you had to dip water from the next room to actually flush it. Now it is a fully functional BYOT toilet...that is "Bring Your Own Toiletpaper". Unfortunately, they don´t have a sink or anything by it to wash your hands....ironic for a hospital....we have gone through a ton of antibacterial gel. As we were leaving today at around 8 pm, the "waiting area" was empty except for a boy about 8 or 9...when asked why he was there, we found out his dad was one of our patients earlier in the day. His dad is going to be staying in the hospital for a few days, and didn´t have anywhere to leave his son, so his son was just planning on staying in the waiting room for the next few days! He was even taking notes to find out if his dad would need medication when he got home! We couldn´t believe it--so Rosa, one of the anesthesiologists is going to take him home for the night. Before we left, we gave him some food we had brought with us....it was just heartbreaking. That´s about all my news...need to get to bed now.