I think the universe took my last blog questions a little too seriously. I found myself vomiting all Friday night, and made my way to the largest private hospital in Kisumu on Saturday. After being stuck in a traffic jam for over an hour to make it to the hospital - I found myself trying to navigate the administration desk? I was steered to the triage nurse, who seemed more concerned with the tattoo on my wrist than my vitals. I sat and waited, and waited, and waited to be called by a doctor. This hospital is the fanciest I have ever been in, with lots of ventilation and windows. All receptionists wear heels, and carry trays of afternoon tea to nurses and doctors. The patients are all dressed to the nines - I'm sure I gave people a lot of entertainment in my basketball shorts and oversized t-shirt.
I was herded into a doctor's office upstairs, where I sat for longer - while a movie from thailand played on the large flat screen in front of me. Finally someone read through my chart, and pushed me back downstairs after proclaiming "a diabetic child that's been vomiting, why have you not put her on fluids?! My very dehydrated self could have kissed the doctor, but decided against it and followed the nurse back downstairs.
The emergency room in this hospital consists of about 6 rooms - all of which were full. I sat on the tiled floor, worried that if I stood for longer I may very well pass out. I finally saw a doctor, and she spoke so quietly all of my answers to her questions sounded like I was shouting at her. She stuck me in a room in the corner of the waiting area, where a nurse then came to stick an IV in my arm to give me fluids.
She asked me how I was, and told me this IV would be easy to place - because I was so brown and my veins were so visible. I should have known that statement spelled trouble. After 4 misses and a doctor being brought in - I had 500 ml of saline dripping into my hand, and was on my way to get my blood drawn. I waited until the lab technician called my name, hoping that he would not struggle as much finding a vein as the nurses before him had. He pulled one vial of blood - no pain - and I walked out of the room, only to be called back in because he hadn't realised he needed two vials of blood. Oh boy.
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally had my results back. The doctor informed me I had a bacterial infection - I think she said in the blood, but she was speaking so quietly I could barely hear her, and was feeling delusional from the fever that was coming back. I filled my prescriptions for pain medication, anti nausea, and my antibiotics, walking out of the breezy hospital 6 hours after I had arrived.
Upon reflecting about my previous questions - I agree with all of them whole heartedly. It seems that the bigger an institution grows, the more cracks and holes there are for patients to get lost in. I understand the necessity of a hospital - that every sort of testing that needs to be done can be completed here, but I found myself wondering if you splintered each ward into it's own entity, if there would be less wait time, less times you have to remind the nurses what's wrong with you.
No comments:
Post a Comment