February 14, 2010
-
One hurdle after another
Where has the time gone? It’s my last week in Cambodia and I’ve barely written about it!
First, praise be to God, and thank you for your prayers. My eye infection has healed now. I took antibiotics and it began to heal after the 2nd or 3rd day. I can open my right eye fully now and see without any problems.
As my time is winding down here, I have resumed work, and shifted how I use my time- from providing individual patient care (which is unsustainable-will the nurses know how to care for these patients after I’m gone?) to nurse education and staff support (they need to know how to do things independently). I started giving lectures to the staff nurses in the mornings and work more collaboratively with the chief nurse and NGO coordinator in the afternoons.
I have been reluctant to write about it, but I have some sad news. Our patient died. He was the father struggling to survive, as he waited for a doctor from France to bring in the medication. His wife was encouraging him to survive till he could get the medication on Sunday. Well, he did make it to Sunday, but he died around midnight- not in time for the meds to arrive.
I think the staff (and myself) felt highly disappointed they invested so much time and effort providing care to this patient, but then he ended up dying anyway. (Plus, we’re at a 100% mortality rate considering our first 2 patient admitted to the unit both died). But what they don’t realize is that their hard work gave this guy an extra week or so to live, so his family could see him before he died. Perhaps this situation has better prepared the nurses to take care of other really sick patients in the future. They will be able to provide them with more advanced patient care, as opposed to if we hadn’t opened this unit. And maybe, they will provide them at a chance to live and survive these deadly diseases like AIDS and TB.
On Friday we began to implement more staffing changes to the unit. At first I was really optimistic- the head nurse assigned the strongest nurse to the sickest patients. But by the afternoon, I was surprised to see her juggling so many roles and doing the other nurses’ jobs in addition to her own tasks. At the end of the day, she confessed that she didn’t feel comfortable with the new assignment, she didn’t have any nursing education, and she wasn’t the right person for the job.
I began to feel quite helpless. I had come here with good intentions, and it took a full week to understand the system, to meet new people. Then, the 2nd week was spent trying to tackle problems and find solutions. Now I’m in my 3rd week and trying to hand the reigns over- but it’s difficult because the staff doesn’t have the resources or training to implement everything I’ve been teaching them. I see now why short term trips can drain resources and actually leave a negative impact on a group as a opposed to a positive one. By the time I established a rapport with the staff and they begun to trust me, it’s already time to leave. What good is it, if I bring changes and resources temporarily while I’m here, but then after I leave, everything resumes back to how it was before?
Lastly.. as if things weren’t difficult enough- I had food poisoning last night. I vomited so much my diaphragm hurts. (But I’ll spare you the details on that.) I still feel weak and exhausted, but I am writing here on xanga so I must be recovering somehow. ~_^
Other things I’ll write about later…
1) visiting the poorest of the poor in Svay Rieng
2) the working class of cambodia, where the cost of living is more expensive than Texas
3) examples of poverty and wealth side by side – what to think of it?
4) tools of torture and tools of luxury
5) pollution, trash, and minefields
6) Chicken blood and poo in the kitchen (Are Americans just spoiled with good hygiene or are these safety practices in place for our own good? aka the root cause of why I had food poisoning)
Again.. thanks for all your prayers and encouragement.
Only 4 more days here in Cambodia- please pray that God will help us use our time wisely, that we will be a vessel for Him, and that we would enjoy our last few days with the NGO and hospital staff, as well as our family.
Comments (4)
Again, I am so inspired by your work Sophie…
You’re a trooper Soph! 100% mortality rate, but you are opening an ICU! In such a rural area…even having one at all is a good start. Wish I could introduce you to a nursing buddy of mine. She is Cambodian too, works in the SICU. I bet she would be so interested in these stories.
@joooolie well, i’m not much of a trooper considering i was only there a month! (this was last year.. i didnt’ get to go this year because i got sick, but my husband went though. the icu we opened was in the capital city of cambodia, so technically it wasn’t in the rural area, it was urban. thanks for the props though =) i’d love to meet your friend who works in the sicu- does she live in houston too?
@Soapie -
we are both in Dallas. I go to houston every now and then
I think she went back to Cambodia to visit last summer and got food poisoning as well. That must be a right of passage or somethin’
haha the way you described the resources, it sounded “rural” but I am sure this is based on American standards. Did your husband report back about changes to the ICU since you were there last? I think it’s so cool that you held training classes for the nurses though. It’s almost likes starting up a nursing school there. You can be dean! heh I’ve always wanted to start a school in underserved areas. Not necessarily a nursing school, but after I read “Three Cups of Tea” I thought if I ever make money, that’s what I could do to help! It is too bad I’ve lost a lot of my nursing skills in graduate school. We are not very hands on anymore. It’s a double edged sword.