How Lucky We Are...a day in the life at CHUK.

A day in the life of anyone working at CHUK, whether it be doctors, nurses, residents, support staff, is just plain hard.  Everyone tries to do their job to the best of their ability but when you don’t have manpower, mentors, medicines, equipment it seems almost impossible yet everyday the employees of CHUK return to work to take care of their patients to the best of their ability using what resources they have.  It is easy to be critical when a resident does not perform to your expectations; however, you have to constantly remind yourself that they are doing an amazing job considering the environment they are working in.  Just finding a working piece of equipment such as an EKG cable, working pulse oximeter, or blood pressure cable for a neonate can be an arduous task.

In a resource poor country, it is always interesting to see how creative people can be to solve what I would consider a simple problem.  For example, when I am at home and I want to charge my phone, I just plug it into the wall.  In Rwanda, it is not so simple and not everyone has access to a simple plug. Outside of the hospital, there is a person who provides just this service.  You can come and recharge any of your electronics for a fee.  For that matter you can get something copied as well.  It isn’t exactly Kinkos but it works.

charging station by entrance to CHUK

copy station by entrance to CHUK

The ICU at CHUK makes the ICUs at home look like the Ritz Carlton.  There are approximately 8 beds in the ICU and they are all usually filled.  Ventilators are available; however, they beep incessantly and no one really knows how to make them stop.  I tried to reconfigure the alarms to the appropriate settings but unfortunately all of the instructions were in French so I didn’t have a ton of luck.  Many of the patients are trauma victums, but you also get a multitude of other problems.  Some are things you might see in the US such as heart failure but others are unique to this environment such as cerebral malaria or organophosphate poisoning.  The doctors and nurses work tirelessly to care for these patients despite the fact there may not have adequate supplies, no epinephrine in the hospital or even a working defibrillator.  (Interestingly there is a CT scanner in the hospital that seems to work pretty well) It is sometime difficult to comprehend that this is considered a “referral hospital.”  However, the district hospitals are even worse off.  Many of their operating rooms do not even have an anesthesia machine, oxygen or essential medications as defined by the WHO.

a student nurse from Belgium works with a patient

I have asked my anesthesia colleagues to give me a wish list of non-disposable supplies that they desperately need so that I can start to work on obtaining them when I return.  I told them no promises but I would try and help them.  That is the least I can do.