We had a three day weekend in Swaziland due to a holiday, so we went up to South Africa and then over to Mozambique on Monday. It was definitely an adventure, and I'm not just talking about the safari. We did make it to a beach finally Sunday night and Monday morning, which was really nice and relaxing. We worked in the hospital again this morning though. How crazy is it that the patients in the wards had not been seen since Friday?? The doctors don't round on the weekends or on holidays, so things were rather crazy today.
The people are very unhappy with the medical systems here, and it seems there is some scandal in the newspaper everyday about one of the hospitals in Swaziland.
I worked mostly in pediatrics today and saw a lot of pneumonia, bacterial meningitis, gastrointestinal infections, and some tuberculosis. Sometimes it seems like one in four patients has oral thrush due to the HIV being so immunocompromsing.
I saw an HIV + toddler today that had his stitches left in 4 extra days because the family was too far away to bring him in over the weekend. The surgeons were very upset at the father of the child because the child is so at risk for infection, etc. The father told us he had been at his brother's funeral over the weekend. The mother had already passed away from secondary infections due to HIV...
My time is running low so I will post more at a later date.