tuesday

So I’m on vacation…no plans (never really been all that good at planning—something I think I might want to work on). Since I was awake early (5:30) and up (6:30) I decided to go into hospital with Rhona- see what she does, maybe see if I can do anything (that sounds funny to anyone who knows how weak my stomach is). Morning report is the changeover from the night staff—new admissions, surgeries, problems…seemed pretty routine today (though I didn’t catch most of what they were saying). Then asked about any issues that needed to be brought up—why the goundstaff got new uniforms and the nurses didn’t, there will be 100K taken out of each paycheck each month for employee well-being but without a meeting for discussion or anything…and the list goes on. Then Rhona had a patient who went to surgery but didn’t have a blood donor and she needed blood. So we had to find a donor which wasn’t too hard but quite time consuming. Ward rounds to check on all her patients. Seemed pretty routine as the patients had been there for a couple of days. Getting through the interpreter (nurse) is interesting as you have no idea if they are actually translating what is being said (and sometimes they don’t). I didn’t see anything too bad (good for me) and yet in the middle of the check of the 5th patient I started getting very warm, dizzy and light-headed, so I excused myself to sit outside in the fresh air so that I wouldn’t fall over in the middle of the hospital. Recovered but decided that might be enough of the hospital for the day. So I left for a while but then had to go back to talk with Rebecca for a bit—on my way back I passed Rhona and Alistair headed up to the Guest House with a chicken that Alistair had just been given by a patient. The look on his face was priceless as he carried around a live rooster in a plastic bag.