Night Shift

I've just finished working 4 night shifts on the VVF ward and think I may have reached my quota on emptying catheter bags (8 patients with 8 catheters x 4 nights...alright I'll stop my whining). Work can be busy and often feels just like back at home but every once in awhile something hits you to remind you that oh yah, I'm in Africa. Like a set of bongo drums in the corner of the ward, or the fact that everytime the women get out of bed to go to the toilet they cover their hospital gowns with a wrap skirt. There are less translators around on the night shifts plus many of the women speak languages that the translators do not speak also, so I am rapidly expanding on assessing my patients using gestures rather than words...facial grimacing with lots of nodding and pointing. Some of the more unique habits some of these women have include a lot of spitting into paper towels or kidney basins they keep at their bedside...haven't quite figured out why they don't just swallow. I have found that flip flops are more comfortable on the night shift...but I may again have to reassess that as I managed to step into somebodies spit dish on the floor as well as dribble far too much urine upon my feet while emptying those catheters...but on the positive side feet are easier to clean than runners! But despite the little night to night hangups it has been a privilege to spend the past 4 nights caring for these women who have been through so much. I had a chance to sit down and read a little more in their charts about their histories, and it is quite incredible what many of them have had to cope with. I have already written before about how many of their husbands leave these women once they develop fistulas, but also a lot of the women were in labour for 5 to 7 days ending in a c-section and the death of the child. Yet still they smile and sing and pray and are a lot of fun to care for.