Clinic

We’ve had a run of groups who have been working in the clinics here. Most of them work in Cite Soleil as the clinic here where we are living is run by a different organization. On Tuesday and Friday mornings I am not teaching in the school…we had reserved those days as staff days but when there are groups the staff is too busy with them to have class and rather than sit around I go out for the morning to work with the teams doing whatever might be helpful. More often I go with a construction crew and paint or haul rocks, concrete or water but the last two weeks we’ve needed people to help at the clinic. As long as I don’t see blood or really sick/injured people, I’m all for it. Last week I helped clean and organize the pharmacy…it was done pretty well before but the shelves they were using were too high and no one could reach the drugs on the top shelf. We rearranged and now everything is within reach! Here is Katie counting and sortingThen this week I was asked to go to the clinic again. I thought I would be shepherding patients from the waiting room to the doctors’ rooms or to the pharmacy or be in the pharmacy counting pills…I was in the treatment room. Sounds pretty scary (and at times I agree though more for the fact that people ask me questions that I don’t know the answers to). I’ve now gotten a quick training in reading dipsticks…not fancy but there it is…people pee in a cup and I know how to tell if they are pregnant or if something else is wrong (granted I still don’t know what is wrong—I can just tell that it is). I’ve done finger pricks for blood sugar tests and I’ve set up asthma breathing treatments for children. It may not be a glamorous job but I do feel like I’m needed…and it gives me time to read in between patients as most of them don’t get any tests done.