It has been two weeks. Time is going be so quickly, although at the same time it feels like I haven't been in the states in years. I do not want to leave here. One Month is not long enough.
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Melago Hospital.
Imagine being sick in a place where your "hospital bed" may ne a blanket on the floor, in some unclamed corner, surrounded by other patients. The building you are in resembles, not a running hospital like it really is, but instead the remains of what once was a large government run Hospital, possibly the biggest and best in the country. Yet, it appears to have been sitting there to rot for years, un-used by humans. But it is not an abandoned building, not at all. The workers just seem to be blind to the holes in the ceiling, exposing leaky pipes. There are no building codes, I am not sure if there are even health codes, in a hospital that is.
Imagine having to wait in the crowded hallways, for days even, to see your doctor for anything from a simple head cold, to realising the diagnosis you recieved a while ago of being HIV positive has worsening symptoms, symptoms you know means that it has turned into full blown AIDS.
Imagine watching as nurses walk around, and being unsure of what their actual purpose is to the hospital, other then gossiping with each other, dressed in their old fashion nurse dresses and little hats, and flirting with the doctors. The nurses do not take care of patients. It is not their job to feed or bathe patients, nor to bring them their food or change their bed linens, or even bring them medicine. I am unsure what their job is.
Imagine having a family member sick in this hospital. Your job is to care for this relation. You must find a place for them to lay their head, either in a bed in the middle of a fowl smelling disease infested ward, crowded with other patients in beds and on the floor. Or, you can find a space on the floor in a hall way somewhere. Now, you have to find a place for yourself to stay. You camp out in the hospital lawn, with hundreds of others who have sick ones in the hospital. You must provide your family member with bedding, you must bathe and feed them. You bring them medicine which you go get and pay for and come back with. You tend to the patient, in whichever way he or she needs tending to. If you are lucky, someday the doctor may come see your brother or sister, mother or father, son or daughter.
But maybe this disease infested hospital is a better place then the home you have miles away, made of dirt and clay. Where you eat, sleep, bathe, toilet, grow and raise food, all on the same ground.
A man named Dr. Ian Clarke wrote a book about Uganda, entitled "The Man with the Key has Gone." This is Africa. Especially in the area of medicine. Forget ever getting X-rays, tests, blood tests, anything. Chances are, the man with the key is gone.
The little girl we took to Melago Hospital (Uganda's big Government run hospital)yesterday will probably need an operation to remove her spleen in 3 or 4 years.
There is no recovery room for little Jane to rest and recover in a clean bed after her surgery. There are no nurses that will dote on her at all, much less give her extra attention because she is such an adorable, calm, obediant, well manored little girl.
I cannot imagine laying on an operating table in a room that does not appear clean at all. Where other people can walk in and out and through, without washing their hands or covering their mouths. Where the ceiling tiles are missing and I can feel, every once in a while, a small wet drip upon my arm, from above, as I lay with my skin cut upon, and my insides exposed to the unsanitary air.
I held Janey's hand as we walked out of the hospital after her check up, being careful to step over and around people sleeping on the ground.
Jane was lucky to be escorted by four Mazungos. She hardly had much of a wait to see the doctor, as we were quickly ushered in front of a group of twenty five people in the waiting room, who God knows how long they had been waiting to see the doctor. We were brought through the doors into a hallway, where there were thirty more, lining the walls, waiting to see the doctor.
Jane was lucky to see a Mazunga doctor, who is visiting Uganda for three weeks trying to teach the people new ways of running a hospital, and leaves next week. Her luck is not usual.
Jane entered a room with three tables, two of which doctors sat at. On one side of the room an African doctor busy with a patient--a middle aged woman who was having complications with her blood not clotting. This women is HIV positive. Middle aged here is mid-twenties to thirties.
At the other table, the Mazunga doctor was waiting to see Jane.
Nothing here is private. Jane's appointment went well, but we will have to go back another time for a blood smear, an extrememly simple test, one that could not be done because "the man with the key" was gone.
The women with HIV's appointment didn't seem to go as well. The Ugandan doctor asked the Mazunga across the room what he should be doing with a patient who's blood was not clotting. The Mazunga responded, with an heir of impatience, frustration, and sorrow, telling the doctor that he needs to give his patients EXAMINATIONS, before coming up to ask questions.
Jane is five years old, according to her file yesterday was her birthday. She does not know this though. As the Mazunga doctor looks up from Jane's file and says "Happy Birthday," Janes looks so confused and does not reply.
Jane did not come with a birth certificate. Most of the children don't. The orphanage estimates their birthdate by looking at their health, and development, specifically their teeth. Some children's ages are "changed" when all the sudden we realise they have developed a lot faster then the age we stamped them with. When they start to look more like 14, not 10. When one of our older children was asked how old she was, she replied "I'm not sure, I was 10, but they just changed it recently, and are talking about changing it again." This specific child looks 13 of 14.
We took Jane out for ice cream after her appointment. We decided it was okay to spoil her.
It was Jane's first time eating ice cream.
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