Last Hospital Day- June 30

 Friday June 30

Today was my last day in the hospital!! We started off with the weekly Friday morning meeting for most of the doctors. A doctor presented on respiratory distress in infants, it lasted about 45 min. Then, I went to the Outpatient ward with Dr. Mensah. Today we saw several cases including rashes, malnutrition, and viruses. Whenever a patient comes in, the parent brings the current medication they are on to show the doctor. Almost all kids start on herbal medications or paracetamol from a local pharmacy then come in when it doesn’t improve. One of my roommates had a cold and the medicine bought for her from our coordinator was an herbal cough medicine that mainly consisted of thyme extract. So, I think herbal medications are generally the first line of defense here. 

Something interesting is that in the standard medical history questions the doctor gives to each patient, she would ask if they sleep under a treated mosquito net, most did.

One infant came in and the doctor noticed in her medical chart book (the ones we saw given to pregnant moms that stay with the child for several years), she hadn’t received vaccines for several months. The doctor questioned the parents and told them that it was their fault she’s sick because they didn’t keep up with them. She assured them that the vaccines and child weight checks are free. 

Something I forgot to write about yesterday was that I asked a malnutrition doctor what they do if a parent can’t afford food. She said that they do adjust the treatment plan based on the ability of the parent to afford food; and they focus on educating the mother because chances are, the family has several other kids. Outside of the refeeding formulas for the severely malnourished kids that are admitted, they encourage fortified staples like nut butter or fortified grains. They do have really cheap bars that are calorie packed that parents can buy in the malnutrition outpatient ward and they often tell the parents to feed the kid one bar with each meal. There was the time that a mother couldn’t afford the formulas in the hospital so social welfare paid for it, so I think they have that support for in-hospital costs if absolutely needed, but they don’t have food stamps here or programs like that. 

I have seen lots of ads for fortified foods since that’s not as standard here as it is in the US and kids do tend to have vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies. 

At the end of our time in the hospital, I have some thank you cards and gifts to different doctors. I also have one to the kitchen staff who really liked the Seattle postcard I wrote it on and passed it all around to look at. I also gave one of the doctors some extra masks, gloves, etc that I didn’t end up needing. 

We went home then went out to the mall. It took about an hour and half (it took about 40 minutes coming back later for context!) and was super hot, especially when we were sitting in traffic. 

We shopped around a bit, got KFC for dinner, and watched a movie in the theater. The mall was more crowded than any other time we’d gone and I spotted several white tourists and some Mormon missionaries. 

]

There was only one size of milkshake and no large side of fries, very different from the US!

We came home and I worked on packing for leaving tomorrow!