First Day at the Hospital

 

 Norrell blogs today:
Today was our first day at the hospital.  We arrived by motorcycle taxi with our translators at 07:00. The first thing that struck me was the odd odor of the place- kind of a fermented B.O. mixed with the open pails of urine at the bedsides and some fish market added in there. It was amazing that all waiting areas were already packed at that hour. We viewed the 8 bed antepartum room, the 8 bed postpartum room and the 5 bed delivery area. Maria and I were locating the supplies when we noticed a midwife rubbing a toweled lump on the counter in the delivery room.  We came over and found a 7 minute old girl who had a normal heart rate, was breathing, but very very limp. Not much was happening to attend to the baby.  Maria grabbed an ambu bag and started resuscitating her.  We found out that her mother had just delivered in the antepartum room after an eclamptic seizure.  We spent most of the morning working on this baby, trying to get pediatric attention, trying to get her care in the NICU  ( the first one ever in Haiti ) but they 'were full'.  Just after noon we finally got her into the NICU for IV fluids, oxygen and antibiotics.  The mom was receiving IV blood pressure meds and IV Magnesium to prevent further seizures We will give an update tomorrow.
We struggled with limited supplies and an overall lack of urgency sensed at the hospital.

When we left in the afternoon we returned to the boys'  orphanage for a meal, and Dina jammed on a guitar that only had 4 strings.  She played with a boy from the orphanage who played 'KOMPA' jams on the uke.

Viola and Eva set up the volleyball net at the girls' orphanage and had a big time.



Then we went to the 'Mother Teresa ' orphanage to play with the babies (prob 20 crib in a room) and the group of 3 and 4 year olds.  We think we taught them some songs, maybe they thought we were crazy, but it was fun and we intend to do all of this again tomorrow.