Day 3: I slept well again last night. I am so thankful there is not a rooster this year. I woke at 630 and led another yoga class on the balcony for Nadene and Carrie. It was a great start of the day. Got cleaned up and was at the hospital by 8 am. When if I first arrived there was a young mother in labor but when I checked her she was only 3-4 cm dilated so I sent her walking. There was also a mother being stabilized on magnesium sulfate for toxemia and she had just delivered a full term stillborn babe. A beautiful, beautiful babe.
I then went to help on the post c/s unit. There were 10 beds and 8 had mothers and 7 babies (one was a post tubal pregnancy). The beds are old and cracked full of germs, as how do you sanitize a mattress in that state? The families must provide for their family members linens, food and water. I check vitals and wounds. The upside of poverty is all babies breastfeed. There is no such thing as supplementing and the mothers and babies just figure it out. No lactation consult here. The was a woman being discharged whose c/s wound was opening and I was able to find some steri strips to close her wound so I felt better about sending her home. I gave a sponge bath to a woman in her bed who had no family, so no linens, rags or food. The eptopic pregnancy woman had a hemoglobin level of 5.3 so I was able to get some injectable iron from the pharmacy.
Then labor and delivery got busy. A woman came in completely dilated with a breech baby so the doctor came in and we performed a c/s. Then two women came in that had incomplete miscarriages so we did D&Cs. Next a 13 year old girl came in with her father because she had been raped so I did an exam and we documented it for her police report. She was devastated. And so was her father. Then two mothers were in labor at the same time and both began pushing at the same time. I was literally running from stall to stall no sure which one would deliver first. The first to deliver had a bulging bag of fluid which ruptured all over the room and her baby came quickly there after. A beautiful healthy baby girl. Then the other mother began to crown. She was one of three mothers that day that did not own shoes and her feet resembled hooves. She was so malnourished her tissue began to shred as the baby's head crowned and her pelvis was clearly small from the same reason. She crowned for a very long time and worked very hard to bring her daughter into the world. Luckily even with her tears she did not need a repair as I don't think her tissue could have tolerated it.
After coming back to the house for lunch at 3 we hopped on motorcycles and went to Azile House. This place had haunted my heart since last year. It provides hospice care for men and women for disease that are treatable in the US....cancer, tb, HIV, etc. But they are mostly known as the nourishment center in Hinche. Families bring their children that they can not feed that are literally starving to be cared for and then the sisters return them. The sisters are from Mother Teresa's sect in India. There is a mural of her on the wall and the sisters were the white with blue striped habit. The same sister from last year was there and it was good to see her. The babies and children love to be held and most cry when you out them back down. We helped feed so many children. Some were 5 and looked like they were 2. One girl in particular had such skinny starved arms and such a swollen belly. The nun was perplexed by her as she had been there a year ago and responded well and was released back to her family and then she returned (as most do) and she was worse. Her tests for parasites, TB and HIV were all negative. She thought she might have a tumor. We will bring the ultrasound by tomorrow to look on the way to the orphanage.
Tonight is busy at the house as there are 8 new students and two teachers sleeping her with us tonight. MFH was starting a second school in Lagone but it didn't work out for lots of reasons and the students were so disappointed so they decided to start a second class in Hinche and their boarding house will not be ready for another night or two. So needless to say I need to go to bed as it is loud here tonight with all these bodies and I have a very full day tomorrow.