Futility

I’ve been here 9 months, there are another 15 to go. Its not that I’m counting down, its just I don’t really know what to think about what we’ve done so far, what we should plan for next and whether or not us even being here is worth it.

Clinically things are still desperate and as for the Faculty, well, the only way to describe them is as a bunch of chocolate teapots! Last Thursday just summed up the whole situation perfectly for me. It’s a complicated story but stick with it…

I was on the ward doing some assessments with the First Years when one of them came up to me and said, ‘Madam, please see my patient, he is not well’. Invariably this means that they are just about to kark it or already have, so I went off to see and sure enough, the man was gasping for breath and looking pretty dreadful. The student did some vital signs while I went off to find the oxygen machine, some cannulation equipment and someone to review and re-admit the patient, because he’d actually been discharged the day before but was still on the ward because he couldn’t pay the bill (which incidentally was the equivalent of £4). As I got to the nursing station, I saw Ali who had been assessing a student looking after a baby in our Adult ICU room because the voltage on Paeds was so low that their oxygen machine wouldn’t work there. Anyway, she told me that the baby had just died and that I could have the O2 concentrator as soon as the guardians had been told about the death – dreadful. To make things just that tiny bit more crazy, at that precise moment a crowd arrived at the ward entrance bringing in a woman shrieking her head off and flailing about. The Clinician was standing at the nurse’s station, looking bewildered, it didn’t help that The Crazy Lady upped the volume several notches, the Dead Baby’s relatives started their mournful wailing and I started twittering in his ear saying that my patient was the only one that could really be helped if he hurried up and got there before he too died. So, after checking he was off to review the patient, I went into the ICU, unplugged and dragged the O2 machine as quietly as possible past the grieving mother and down to the man.

When I got there 5 students and the Clinician were crowded round the bed. Two of them, one glove each, were sticking in cannulas any old how, used needles lying all over the blankets, blood everywhere. The man was HIV +ve, stage 4 AIDS for goodness sake. So I dashed off again, past his guardians all wide-eyed and helpless, and brought back a pile of gloves and a sharps bin. After watching them try again and again, I’d had enough, I everso politely and calmly budged the nearest student aside and did it myself. We got fluids running and gave him a shot of 50% glucose to perk him up a bit. As we did another set of vital signs, I realised the time - we’d requested a meeting with The Boss Lady to discuss our placement and what to do next - and we were late…I left the student with instructions and dashed off to the Faculty.

Not sure why I still work on English time and get het up about being late – she wasn’t ready anyway. As we killed time outside her office, it felt like waiting to go in to see a Headmistress, I suppose it was really except its more serious than a petty schoolgirl crime. She listened as we stated why we’re unhappy with the progress that’s been made over the last 9 months, why we feel so unsupported and alone in the work we’ve been set to do, why we’re disappointed that we seem to be the only people actually making any effort to do any work. She didn’t have very much to say, she’s going to get back to us, she doesn’t seem to care. So, as you can see I’m left pondering about what we’ve done so far, what we should plan for next and whether or not us even being here is worth it.

To finish the story about the patients, the Baby was taken home to be buried, the Lady was shipped off to Thyolo (still Shrieking) and the Man died later that night (still Gasping because the oxygen machine stopped working when the generator was switched off so that electrician could fix the voltage problem on Paeds.