An Average Day at the Clinic

Monday

Today we continued our work at the clinic. A typical day goes like this: We arrive around 9:00 am, and there are already patients waiting to be seen. Peacemaker begins seeing patients after they are registered. They are given 2 cards. One is an identification card with a unique number that they use each time they come. The other is a patient record card where diagnosis and treatments are written after seeing one of the nurses. After they recieve their diagnosis and prescribed medicines, they visit the pharmacy (pictured below). Here, they hand the pharmacy technicians (Julie and Mariama) their patient record card. The pharm techs gather the prescribed medications and give directions on how the medication should be taken. Unlike western medicine, detailed information and directions are not given. Instead, they are handed a plastic packet of pills with tick marks on the left middle or right of the packet indicating how many to take at what time of day (morning, afternoon, and night). These days the pharmacy is well stocked because of the many groups of volunteers that have visited the clinic recently. Unfortunately, there is not really a steady supply chain to the clinic.

If as part of the treatment, the patient needs an injection, they come to the "surgery room," where the more invasive procedures are done (bandaging wounds, giving IV's, giving injections). This is where Chelsea has worked for the past few days. In Africa, injections are a very common and popular treatment for anything from malaria to a slight rash, so Chelsea has been busy! Contradictory to its name, the "surgery room" is not a sterile environment, as you might expect. Chelsea has been practicing and teaching basic sterile procedures to staff nurses in order to discourage secondary infections. Because of conditions here and frequent lack of supplies, the staff members often take shortcuts in order to conserve supplies- like administering IV's and injections without gloves. Chelsea is encouraging the use of gloves whenever possible.

"The Surgery Room"

Injectables: B-Complex, CHQ (Malaria Treatment), Novagarin, Gentamiacin, Penicillin, Procain Penicillin, and sterile water.

Wound Care

When little ones come into the clinic to be treated, we try to comfort them with the dolls and cars that we brought. To those who have worked on the dolls, look at the precious smile you have brought to little Brijiana's face!

Lansana and Fatu (twins) with their new toys.

Patients are seen until about 5:00, but usually everyone is still there until 6:00 making sure that patients are taken care of and that they get the medicines they need.