Finally Friday...

Yay. It's weekend. Finally. This week has seemed awfully long. I guess cause I've made long days. I still can't believe how long yesterday was- almost 12 hours in the clinic. I am still not sure how I ended up with 46 patients. I handed out 36 tickets at the gate, sending away others waiting. I had 5 reviews. So you would have expected 41 patients. But no. By the end of the day I counted 46 medical charts. Hmmm. I asked my staff during our staff meeting today. They were all flabbergasted...wondering how 5 extra children came to the clinic. My response was 'I am not surprised they came to the clinic, and someone (guard or staff) probably let them in (in exchange for what?) or they snuck in BUT my big question is- how did all 5 unaccounted for children end up with medical charts??? Someone is not talking. Oh well. In the end it comes down to the fact that they obviously all needed to be seen.

I'm just happy it's Friday now. It's been a bit of a funny Friday today though. No chance to visit referral centers or do any admin for that matter. I was busy with patients all day somehow. One of my patients was Namina- the girl with Noma - so her wound care alone took about 30 minutes. Then there were 4 children from the previous day with malaria and Hb's between 6-8 that I had come back. One of them was looking a bit more lethargic with today an Hb of 5.5 so I referred her. Others looked better. Then i called the referral center only to find out that a malnourished 9 month old breathing at 80 per minute that I referred at 3pm yesterday only just showed up at the referral hospital- a 24 hour delay! Turns out she's HIV positive, so she's been referred to the government hospital. Then there were 2 VVF ladies admitted on the ward yesterday who came with their babies- well toddlers really as they were over 1 year. So I had to make sure those two were okay. They weren't. They both have malaria. Surprise surprise. I was a bit annoyed cause they had been at the center for 24 hours already and no vital signs taken and no one really checked on what they were eating etc. Oh well. Some things just don't change. So, got those 2 sorted out. Then checked up on one of our cleaners who was sick with malaria on Wednesday- I was asking about her medication and found out she is taking only half of the amount of tablets per day as prescribed. So- had to take her to my office and explain how to take the meds again and make her take the second half of todays dose right then and there. Oh Salone. Why do so many people here not understand something when you've explained it over and over and over. Anyway, it was another Friday come and gone. Unfortunately leaving some admin work for the weekend. But for now, it's off to bed...